LSAS at MIT Splash!
Last November, some LSAS high school students traveled to Boston to participate in MIT Splash! Splash is a weekend-long learning experience for high school students in grades 9-12 where MIT students and community members teach students about diverse topics such as STEM and more. Some of the classes from 2023 Splash were Why Europe Doesn’t Exist, How to Become a Software Engineer without a Computer Science Degree, Weird Electrons, and many others.
The trip started on Friday when everyone flew from Virginia to Boston and landed there in the late evening. We all got settled down at our hotels and prepared for a fun-filled weekend!
The next day was the first day of classes and once we all completed registration, we were off to our classes! I thought the first day was the most hectic of the entire trip since it was difficult to find where my classes were due to how large the MIT campus was. However, once I got situated in the area, it was much easier to roam around campus and get to classes on time. On Saturday, I took classes like Why We Need Ethics in AI, Algorithms that Keep the World Running, and How to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I enjoyed all these classes, although my favorite one was definitely Why We Need Ethics in AI. Overall, the first day was a great introduction to MIT and its environment and I learned a lot of things that I wouldn’t have thought about before!
Sunday was the last day of classes and some LSAS students only stayed half of the day to take classes since we had a flight to catch. This was a lot less hectic and chaotic than Saturday since it was easy to locate classes and find the way around campus. Some of the classes I took were Weird Elections and Locked Doors Aren’t as Secure as You Think. These were my two most interesting classes of the weekend and I learned a lot of random facts from the Weird Elections class. For example, I didn’t know that a bunch of teenagers ran for governor in the 2018 Kansas Gubernatorial Election. Overall, this was a great way to end off my first Splash weekend and a wonderful experience!
Here is some input from a couple of other LSAS high schoolers who participated in Splash:
“The trip was great. The classes being taught by students brought a bit more energy to the learning experience, and the topics themselves were unique and interesting to learn about. They also included a lot of classes about music, which made me personally enjoy the trip more.”
- 9th Grader, Jake T.
“It was a good opportunity to learn in unorthodox ways and prepare for college!”
- 12th Grader, Remy W.
Overall, Splash was an amazing experience and it was even more fun to spend time with friends and make new connections, I would participate again next year!