High School Enrichment: Maybe Just Fun, Maybe Life-Directing

There are two main reasons for learning – because you have to and because you want to. In high school, that usually works out as required courses and electives. But is that enough? No.

Students need enrichment, too. Young people get a bigger picture of the world and explore interests, even weed out some, through things like clubs, teams, volunteer work, part time jobs, college classes, and other activities.

When my youngest daughter started high school some of the enrichment activities she’d been a part of were losing their charm or she was just outgrowing them. It was time to cast a wider net.

Her high school guidance counselor (that was me, since we homeschooled) started looking at what was being offered at colleges around us. I chose colleges for several reasons. One, was inspiration through exposure - just being on a college campus and imagining herself as a student there, and relating the sheer size of the campus to the amount of opportunities and possibilities.

Another was impartial critique. She was a great student but I knew that outside validation had a place too, beyond her piano teacher, co-op leaders, etc. She knew it too and wanted her work to be measured by people that didn’t know her.

So we started looking, and since we live in suburban Chicago, there are several universities nearby. We weren’t looking for summer programs designed to get a jump on college credits, or STEM programs, and I didn’t have a lot of money to spend. Those three factors ruled out most options. But, more searching brought us to a program at the University of Chicago called Splash! Chicago.

It’s a program with three options: Droplet, Splash, and Cascade. You can get all the details at https://splashchicago.learningu.org/ but basically, it’s a series of classes for high schoolers on a very wide range of topics and they are taught by students at the university that are in that field. And, it’s free! Enrollment does not have any of the snags we ran into elsewhere like residency requirements or income level limits. The programs are open to all high school students – regular and elite public and private schools, and homeschools, too.

It’s all spelled out on their site, so I won’t say more on the particulars here, but I will share our experience.

As we drove up to the address, we saw effervescent college students waving signs and directing kids to the sign-in area. The welcoming scene took the Gothic grandeur of the Harper Library from slightly imposing to approachable and awe-inspiring.

We were both a little nervous, but my daughter hopped out and joined in. I watched her climb the stairs and then I drove around the corner and pulled over to catch my breath over having just dropped off my 14 year old daughter at the very prestigious University of Chicago, on her own, for a new experience! I was so proud of her for having very little apprehension about catapulting herself into an unknown situation, and truth be told, I was a little proud of myself too, for surviving the launch.

Another appealing factor of this was the experience of being in a situation where no one knew her – whether she was shy or outgoing, funny or serious, or anything else. There’s a curious freedom in that. This is going to sound selfish, because it is, but I purposely didn’t tell others about what we found because I wanted that experience for her.

As to the classes she selected, a surprise for me was one called Set Theory. Okay, I wasn’t even sure what that was. But she explained to me that because Math had always seemed to be not really her thing, she wanted to try focusing on a specific aspect of it to see if she was missing something, some key to understanding, or some part of the field that she would take to. Wowza, is all I can say to that line of reasoning. High school Me would hardly have done the same.

The set theory class proved that she really is more of an English skills person. And that’s okay! She also tried a film history class, poetry, American Sign Language, and others.

The ASL was purely a lark as she’d had no exposure to sign language or deaf culture before, but that class hooked her. From there, we found a program at the University of Illinois at Chicago called American Sign Language and Deaf Culture Club which you can find out more about at https://illinois.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/aslclub. I see that it’s online now, but it used to meet at noon, every other week. It’s a community program, free, and open to everyone. Basically, it’s an opportunity to meet with others that are learning to use ASL. They also have clubs for other languages. These are a real gem for anyone, at any age, who wants to practice a new language.

Okay, this probably doesn’t happen to all Splash! participants, but, my daughter is now in her second year of the ASL Interpreting program at a nearby community college, all because of the Splash! course. She plans to go on to a university next year and then work with the deaf and hard of hearing community in some capacity.

Our experience in the UChicago enrichment classes has been priceless. Not only did it introduce her to a passion and a career path, but other experiences that came through it have shaped my child as well – from the class she dropped because she was uncomfortable with the literature selection, to the ornate doorknobs on the building and its amazing architecture, to the assurance that algebra and geometry are as far as she wants to go in math.

I’m so glad we found these opportunities and hope you’ll consider this post a “sign” to take a look yourself.