My Summer Experience

I did a lot. A lot a lot. But, it was all worth it. Here's why:

Hi! I meant to write this journal a lot earlier, but I’ve been really busy and I didn’t want to upload anything less than my best effort. So here it is. Initially, Bott and I planned to split this journal into three parts, but I think that I’m going to start with a broad journal and then write three sub-journals that are more in depth.

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Last year when I was brainstorming possible ideas for my E=mc project, one particular idea stuck with me. I wanted to study the social impact of improved systems of education and medicine in third world countries, especially India. I realized at the time that this idea was quite ambitious, but I knew that it was fundamentally what I wanted to study.

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This summer was so incredibly transformative. It helped shape my perspective on everything, my future aspirations, and who I am as a person and what I value. I spent my entire summer doing what I love, working with children. For the first six weeks, I worked at Mr.Hahn’s camp, Camp Colonie. Camp Colonie is a summer camp/school for children with disabilities. I was placed in the youngest group and had the opportunity to be a one-on-one with a little girl named Sabrina. Sabrina is six years old. She has Smith-Magenis Syndrome which is a developmental disorder characterized by intellectual disability, social and behavioral problems, sleep disturbances, distinctive facial features, etc. To be honest, I was really nervous in the beginning, but by the end, I was in tears when I had to say goodbye. She is one the most important reasons behind my new found love for Special Education and disabilities in general.

After camp, I spent three weeks back home in India. There, I got to spend around a week and a half at a nonprofit school for children with disabilities, Digant, in my hometown of Berhampur, Odisha. Those 40 hours changed my life in unbelievable ways. In this post, I want to share a few of the things that I experienced and learned from working at Digant, but I think I will make another journal focused on what how Digant shaped my life.

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So how does this all relate to E=mc? First, the two experiences played a pivotal role in shaping what I wanted to do with my life, but also what I wanted to base my project off of. My work with children with disabilities has opened up my eyes to a field that I am not very knowledgeable in. My life changing summer has fueled a passion that I hope stays ignited through this project and for the rest of my life.

Wait! I forgot to tell you what I want to study specifically this year! I want to study the differences, and the reasoning, behind the special education system in the United States and India and what ordinary people like you and I can do to help improve the system in a developing country like India. Still ambitious, I know. But this is what I love, and this is what I want to do. I’ve set some pretty hefty goals for myself this year and to be honest, I might not be able to cross all, or any, of them all, but that’s not the point of E=mc. To me, E=mc is a platform and a class where I have the freedom to pursue what I love but to also learn and grow and fail while I do it. So, here’s to an amazing year filled (hopefully) with a lot of learning, a ton of a-ha moments, and, of course, with a lot of questions.

A competitive game of Carrom before class