My Nonprofit Reviews

SSP was the greatest summer of my life. I know that sounds trite, but I've long given up trying to come up with the perfect way to describe everything SSP made me feel, because it's just too difficult.
For one thing, the community was beyond words. I'm still in direct contact with all my classmates and TAs, and I hear from them every few hours. Before SSP, I'd never met so many intelligent, creative, and talented people in one place, yet pretty much everyone was still remarkably humble. 50% of us participants got sick, but we still felt completely taken care of and at home because of our amazing TAs. The faculty members were extremely involved, regardless of the fact that they had their own lives outside of the program; our academic directors were often at our dorms, helping us with our work until 11 PM or later. We had a steady stream of alumni stopping in practically every other day, giving us crash courses in their respective fields and sharing their life stories with us at lunch and dinner. They told us about their SSP experiences, how their careers changed direction as they grew older, and the steps they took to realizing their true passions. After I came home from SSP, I realized I gained confidence from my experiences, and I'm still noticing it manifest itself in unrelated areas, such as music and leadership positions.
Every single day at SSP was new and exciting. We often didn't know how late we'd be working in the lab, how late we'd be doing homework, or if there would be a Dairy Queen run until it was already happening. I miss this spontaneity in my life almost as much as I miss the people that made it happen.