Summer of a Lifetime

By Nathasha Rodríguez Maldonado, INSPIRE Community Member

I can say I had the best summer so far. I started it by taking three summer classes. I took Pre-Calculus, English 11th, and History of Puerto Rico during June. While doing that, I was also doing Community Service at a local Summer Camp. Then, I went to the INSPIRE Summer STEM Experience at Virginia Tech. I had the perfect time there. I met 19 wonderful students and I still cannot believe how cool they are. I have never met so many people as similar to me as them before. We also had the best RHAs. We had lectures about Engineering, did amazing hands-on Engineering activities, and visited huge labs. On our free time, we played soccer, played our instruments, played all kind of board games, went to walks, did bowling, and the girls even did a sleepover. We learned while having fun. I enjoyed a lot and I am sure everyone else did! Actually, any of us wanted to leave our new friends, so the last day was the crying day. After the SSE, I spent a week around Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City as part of a government program for high school academic achievers. There we went site visiting and I was lucky enough to meet with one of the kids from the INSPIRE SSE again. I just came home yesterday, and today the first thing I did was taking the TOEFL test. What else can I say? My summer has been AWESOME and I had the biggest opportunity of my life so far: the Summer STEM Experience at Virginia Tech!