Fond Memories of Nerd Camp 116
Slate's "Summer Camp" issue has revived a piece from a few years back recounting author Meghan O'Rourke's experience as a student at "nerd camp." O'Rourke was a student at Johns Hopkin's CTY program (bias alert: so was I, and remain a fan), but I suspect there's a lot in common with the various Governor's Schools and programs like Duke's TIP. What's been your experience with such programs? Are you going to one now? Are your kids?
The Summer Science Program (Score:2, Interesting)
I did this camp the summer before senior year, and it was the best six weeks of my life so far. We were walked through the process of doing observations and writing a script to calculate the orbit of a near-earth asteroid. (The name is generic because the camp dates to the 50s.) Not anymore, obviously, but I understand that way back when Richard Feynman and some other folks at Caltech would guest-lecture from time to time.
Changed my Life (Score:2, Interesting)
Governor's School was the first place I discovered where asking questions, thinking carefully and communicating clearly were valued rather than suppressed. It gave me hope that there were communities that valued wrestling with questions and solving problems and encouraged me to seek them out.
Camp Atari (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to Camp Atari [atarimagazines.com]. I didn't learn anything, but the Warez were awesome! Getting disks was much better than downloading things at 300bps...
I also did Camp Watonka [watonka.com] in the Poconos, where I got early exposure to amateur radio, model rockets, rifles, and extra-circular Dungeons & Dragons!