Goodbye Summit, Hello Summer!

Overall, my Summit experience has been characterized by some frustrations, lots of successes, and countless memories with our group.  Not only will I have my Summit experience to reflect on when I do group work in the future, I will also be able to use the project that we have done to build my resume.  I think the best thing that I have learned from Summit this year is that even if you encounter frustrations or problems along the way, if you simply continue trying to make your project work you will be able to get the results you wanted.  We set out with an extremely ambitious calendar for our project, and in spite of all of our frustrations and miscommunications with each other and our organization, we were able to still accomplish all of the goals we set. In conjunction with the teachers at Boyd, I think our group has made a real impact on all of the kids we have worked with at the school. Teaching them basic environmental principles, we had really great feedback from both the kids and the teachers ensuring us that we made a lasting impression on them. Had I not been given the opportunity to live in Summit this year, I think my sophomore year would have been much less of a learning experience than it was.  Developing time-management, communication skills, and the basics of how to plan and implement a successful lesson plan or activity with the groups we met with at the school, this year was a great opportunity for me to fine-tune my leadership skills and learn how to work on a long-term project.  The only thing that I would have changed, in retrospect, would be to set out better communication agreements for our group to have been able to avoid a lot of the troubles that we ran into. Ultimately we were able to resolve our communication issues much better during the second semester and better coordinated with each other's schedules, but it would have been nice if we could have figured this out sooner.

For future Summit Groups I would recommend to set out really clear, tangible goals for you year. Set a calendar and really try to stick to it as best you can to ensure you can make all of the things you want to happen a reality. And, finally, figure out at the beginning of the year how you will best communicate with each other , and a system of accountability to ensure that everyone does their fair share of the work.

Thanks for a great year, and I hope everyone has a great summer!

Anna