A ColLAB Story
Why were there only 26 students on campus this past week on Wednesday? Let’s see…
After just one week, ColLAB #2 is already proving to be an amazing experience for our students at The Winchendon School. Immediately after Commencement on Sunday, May 20, when we said our final goodbyes to the wonderful Class of 2018, underclass students began to prepare for the next two weeks. The students doing Field Immersives were checking packing lists and receiving last minute instructions from their instructors. On Monday, May 21, the group doing service in the Dominican Republic left campus at 3:30 a.m. in order to make a 6:30 a.m. flight. Next, the trip to France headed to Logan for an afternoon flight. Two domestic excursions headed off in vans later that day: one to New York City and Brooklyn to look at street art and to use the Brooklyn campus as a home base, and the other to Vermont, where they would hike a section of the Appalachian trail as a part of The Man and Nature ColLAB. Later that week, The Sword, Pen, and Arrow ColLAB would complete the archery portion of their experience and head to NY to train with renowned Spacial Dynamics director, Jaimen Macmillan, on fencing, movement, and posture.
Many other students are off campus working on independent studies, including Cesira B. ‘19, who is traveling New England taking photographs; Christophe S. ‘19 and Thomas B. ‘19, who are back home in Canada creating a startup clothing company; Caitlin M. ‘20; who is observing judges and lawyers to learn more about the American legal system; and Kiley R. ‘19, who is working with an orthopedic surgeon in Stoughton, MA. Additional students are taking part in internships, including Emma B. ‘19 with a trial lawyer; Sophie C. ‘19 with Coastline Engineering; Lauren D. ‘21 and Emma L. ‘20 with separate political campaigns; Max F.‘21 with an ice rink to see how it is run; Penghui Y. ‘19 as an intern for Boston Truecare Group; Mikey M. ‘19 with a theater department to look at operations management; and Xinlong “Frank” Z. ‘19, who is working for Class of 2017 Michael W.’s company (created at The Winchendon School during a former ColLAB), where Chinese students who wish to study abroad are provided with a space to network with students and consultants. Frank is responsible for marketing the events while also working on pricing and promotions to encourage a large turnout. Another small group of students in the Service, Community, and Leadership crew is working hand in hand with Irene Hernandez (mother of Nino H. ‘18), to serve the Hispanic community of the area. Those students are Khalyl L-M. ‘19, Karla K. ‘19, and Hailey G. ‘20.
On campus, a number of other independent studies are busy at work—from creating music and beats, to looking at hotel management, to doing art work that is specific to fashion design, to creating animation, to combining poetry with art, and many other projects. Robert M. ‘20 is looking into the applications of remote access to a system using different secure services and how hackers and criminals exploit these services to gain unfettered access to a system using malware and other attack vectors. Also, Haoxuan “William” Y. ‘19 is trying to create a social media app that can be used for both Winchendon and Chinese students. Chinese students primarily use Wechat, while American students primarily use Snapchat or Instagram, so he is trying to develop an app that all students could access for better communication.
The faculty-led ColLABs have been busy as well, but on many days, those classes are off campus for field trips to zoos, museums, local lakes and rivers, radio stations, restaurants, universities and colleges in the area, and many other places. Those ColLABs include Life of a Chef, Transcendentalism on the Water (Fly Fishing and Literature), The Biochemistry of Attraction, Gender and Sports, Winchendon’s Next Top Model, and Reclaiming the Forest (Woodworking).
As a result, campus itself has been a bit quiet on many days. So, why were there only 26 students on campus this past week on Wednesday? We’ll let you figure it out!
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