When I heard that taking the SAT was a requirement for going to summer camp, I was not interested. Middle school was frustrating enough. The last thing I wanted was more school over my three-month reprieve from all the torments of public education. However, this was no ordinary summer camp. Duke University's Talent Identification Program (otherwise known as TIP) is a summer studies camp for motivated middle and high schoolers who want to take a college-level class over the summer. At least, that's the basic definition. As a "TIPster," I can say from experience that TIP was life-changing, and the place where I spent the best summers of my life. Here are a few ways TIP changed my life.
1. The classes
During my first two years at TIP, I took both of the creative writing classes they offered. I'd always been bored in my English classes in regular school because the work wasn't challenging enough. All I really wanted to do was write stories, and as I got older, poems, not five paragraph essays about who my hero was. TIP was different. My classmates and I were all very good writers for our ages (12-14 years old), and we had the passion and motivation to keep writing, a community I'd never been around before. For the next three weeks, we churned out poetry, fiction, and everything in between. During my first year, I learned that poetry didn't have to rhyme, read e.e. cummings' work, and felt that I was destined to be a poet. During my second year, I honed my writing style and developed my own unique voice. It's thanks to my teachers at TIP that I was able to write a novel last year, and that I continue to write fiction today.
2. The people
TIPsters are a special breed of individuals. Remember that kid who sat in the front of the classroom in high school? The one who was kind of weird, socially awkward, and way too smart for her own good? Imagine taking all of those kids from all the high schools and middle schools across the country, and plopping them all in the middle of a college campus to be supervised by college students. Things get weird pretty fast, but that's what's great about the TIP experience. Where else would you have "Wear-a-Skirt-Wednesday?" every second Wednesday of the term for years and years? Not only do we have our traditions, but we have our enduring friendships. I met my best friend at TIP in 2010, and six years later, we still tell each other everything. We went from awkward middle schoolers to prom dates to young adults. Talk about #TransformationTuesday!
3. The community
A lot of TIPsters were outcasts at their regular schools. TIP provided a three-week reprieve from the constant bullying they endured during the school year. I was often teased in school for being "too smart," until the kids decided I was stupid because I didn't excel in math. I wasn't the only one who struggled to meet the impossible expectations of petty teenagers, but there was none of that at TIP. I was met with an accepting community of students who were willing to learn about others' differences, embrace them, and celebrate them. I had my own squad, something I'd only dreamed of previously, and I fit right in with them. I always had people to hang out with during free time, whereas at home, I would have had my nose in my notebook writing "Star Trek" fanfiction. Another great thing about TIP: there were always people who shared your interests. I wasn't the only one who created a "Star Trek" alternate universe in my journal.
In short, Duke TIP was an oasis of learning, friendship, and kindness that I desperately needed when I was in the throes of adolescence. I grew as a person and as a writer. A lot of people tell me I went to "nerd camp," and that I "wasted" my summer by taking classes, but I'll always look back on those summers fondly. They were truly the best times of my life.
