A Humbling Experience

By Rachael Padgett

Southwestern High School, Pulaski County

 

How many places can you take 300-plus teenagers, put them in a college setting, tell them they are not allowed to use their cell phones or iPods outside of their rooms, and not get laughed at?

 Furthermore, you insist that these students are not allowed to have cars, must stay within an in-campus perimeter and observe an early curfew. Oh, and for the next five weeks, they are not allowed to have visitors, with one exception: Parents Day.

Now imagine that with all those restrictions, hundreds of teenagers want to be there, and are willing to go through a lengthy and competitive application process to do so.

Believe it or not, it happens every year in Kentucky. It’s called the Governor’s Scholars Program, a five-week residential study course that prepares some of the best high school students in the state for college careers and leadership positions. Add in the fact completion of the program almost guarantees a scholarship to most colleges in Kentucky, and it’s no surprise that over 1,000 students attend the GSP every year at three host campuses.

I happen to be one of them, spending most of my summer living in a dorm on the Bellarmine University campus in Louisville.

Although I may be the “smart kid that can do anything” at home, I feel pretty dull here. From a self-proclaimed redneck who intelligently debates politics, to a tri-lingual person who can “pop lock and drop it” with the best, the scholars here are diverse and unique. But most scholars have one thing in common at this “nerd camp”: We feel inferior to everyone else.

“It seems like everyone is specialized in something,” said Corey Phelps, a scholar from Burnside.

GSP was started to encourage Kentucky’s “best and brightest” to go to college and start careers in Kentucky. But secretly, I believe this organization was made to humble everyone. I thought my 33 ACT score was pretty good until I met several people with 35s. And those people with 35s feel like it’s just a test score and other people have done more interesting things. And those other people wish that they could do something someone else can do….

By the third week of the program, my notion of stereotypes was gone. I don’t think one person turned out to be what I expected them to be. Showcase, the weekly talent show, was where I got most of my surprises. One guy who had seemed especially shy belted out an original song. Another one, who had been especially passionate during the Community-wide Capture the Flag, turned out to be equally passionate while playing piano. It made my jaw drop.

Speaking of piano, I’m pretty sure 80 percent of the scholars on this campus play piano. One guy, who seems to be extremely obnoxious and doesn’t have the discipline to sit quietly for five minutes, has the discipline to play a medley of popular piano songs. Most piano players are better than I am, and I took lessons for five years. However, most players who performed at Showcase thought that they weren’t that good and that everyone else was better at it than they were.

And that seems to be the theme at the Governor’s Scholars Program. As we learn and grow, we find that others are learning and growing too, maybe even more than we are, so that by the end of the summer, we’ll all be significantly more intelligent, yet feel that much stupider.

I’ve learned many things during my time at GSP.