Junior Scholars Program!

I suppose I should start with what I'm doing this summer. After spending the last two summers with the summer orientation program helping graduated high school students begin to understand what their new home(Miami) would be like, I have moved on to helping rising high school seniors understand what college is all about. This summer I will be serving as the head resident advisor for the Junior Scholar Program, which is a program designed for rising high school seniors who apply to come here for a six week experience in which they take 2 college classes as well as partake in numerous extracurricular activities. In the past we have taken students to the World Piano Competition, the Dayton Air Show as well as this year Bengal's Spring Training camp. We also provide a series of seminars on different aspects of the college admissions process from financial aid to the honors program. If students perform well in classes as well as achieve a certain score on standardized testing they are automatically admitted to Miami, but those details and more information can be found on our website, http://www.units.muohio.edu/jrscholars/. If your are a rising Junior or younger in high school getting a really early start on looking at colleges this is definitely a program worth checking out.

Until I start that program on June 26th I have been back and forth from Oxford preparing as well as checking in on the orientation leaders. I chose to work for the Junior Scholars program this summer because I love working with students. At Miami I have been a tour guide, a member of the student foundation, a member of a fraternity founded at Miami, an orientation leader as well as student coordinator for orientation, a resident assistant and now the head of the Junior Scholar program as well as a blog participant! I point those things out because through my experiences at Miami I learned of what I am truly passionate about, generally working with college/high school students, and more importantly gone after opportunities which have allowed me to really understand what this field is all about. There have been so many learning experiences and I have been blessed by having so many wonderful people help me on my journey to becoming just who I want to become. I look forward to updating more about how the Junior Scholars program is going and feel free to post questions if you have any.

Daniel MacKenzie