Hello everyone!
I hope that all of you have been doing well this semester. I am reaching out to you all on behalf of the Center for Educational Outreach. I have been working with CEO since my freshman year, and have loved working with youth and showing them how amazing college can be, and that it is attainable for all of them. I work closely with a program they have called Future U. This program is designed for middle school students, grades 6th-8th. They come up each year while in middle school, about 3 times per semester, and participate in workshops put on by different departments in many schools at the university. We have workshops with the Engineering school, School of Education, School of Natural Resources, LSA (Mathematics Dept., African American Studies), School of Business, and a few others. Students or faculty run these workshops and teach the students about their field, showing them what they do, how they do it, and how the students themselves can do it as well.
I have loved this program since I started working at CEO, however I was disappointed that the students never get a look into the sciences like Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc. My supervisor Michael Turner hasn't been able to make a connection within science departments, for whatever reasons. Making and keeping reliable connections with the departments is crucial, since we are continuously in contact with them about the visits. Being a Biology major, I feel like this one field that should not be left out when informing younger students about future career options. I have told Michael that I will try and reach out to faculty that I know, and see whether or not they can help me in forming some kind of science workshop to give to the students.
My thoughts immediately went to giving the students the opportunity to look at a variety of labs. I also thought that having students or professors come speak about their research and the importance of the sciences would also be great. So, I am reaching out to you all to see whether you, or someone you know would be interested in doing a workshop for middle school students. The workshops occur on Saturdays from 9-11 am. The students also come up for a weekend during the summer, and we like to have workshops planned then as well.
If any of you are interested, please let me know. Pass my invitation along to any other faculty that you think would be great at this as well. Michael Turner and I will be meeting with people who are interested, and we would talk about the specifics and workshop material that would be presented. This program helps so many young students to become excited about college, as well as help them start thinking about the future. Sorry for the long email, I wanted to make sure I mentioned everything. Thanks for your time, I'm sure I'll see many of you around campus!
Have a great day!
-Celina Soto
