KU Leuven’s Summer of Science program is conducted at KUL every year in the summer for high school students to earn valuable college and research experience. There is one course schedule out of many that each participating student follows side by side with many other interesting activities.
My course was NUMBER and as the name suggests it was all about scary symbols and college level mathematics.
The first day started with awkward introductions with everyone and meeting peers from my course. I first met a group of students, and as newcomers arrived, they joined. Some were from my course; others were from courses Cell DNA, Relativity, Nuclear and so on. Then, icebreakers were carried out by the very nice counsellors. There were six of them.
After a while of games, we were finally gathered in the hallway and were taken into our respected classrooms. We cozied for an insightful, mathsy lecture just to get stumped by the gibberish the teacher started writing on the board. There were axioms, conjectures and stuff I’m sure I had not heard about, but it made the experience feel smart and real. Well, that was until we were handed over worksheets for independent practice. Good thing lunch was just an hour away (Just? Well, the lengthy research work later on made me rethink my times).
Lunch was a baguette sandwich, a drink and chit chat with people from all over the world: Romanians, Turks, Chinese and Indians (emphasis on the “Turks”; I had to repeat my Turkish history to 10 different people). Lunch also included scooping bees from my soda.
After lunch we had two-and-a-half hour’s worth of research. Mine was on the game Dobble, or, finite geometry. These researches were in groups of three or four and took a heck of discussion - a whole week to understand the tough words and concepts - but it was worth it.
By the end of the week, and hence, the end of the program, we had to design and present our researches with the whole class. After lectures, we went straight to brainstorming and presenting. The day ended with snacks and drinks with parents and mentors.
My favourite part about the whole program was the way it was designed and the little things included to make it an interesting week (summer school with college level activity can get boring real quick). These included the captivating guest lectures, communicated by professors, on the theories behind Rubik’s cube, Origami, “accidentally discovered” math, and more; a little math game table with different levels of Rubik’s cubes, puzzles and problems to solve in our free time; and the constant reminding that we were not asked to get any of the lectures that were taught (how contradictory).
Personally, I was fascinated by how everyone was participating with a common mindset (nerdy like mine AND nerdier). It was cool navigating through MANY accents and I found out that Dutch is by default written in cursive. There was also this teacher with a PROMYS shirt and upon asking, I got to know he used to be a mentor there; almost everyone was from a super qualified background at such young ages that it gave me constant reality checks that I was within very privileged premises. Speaking of which, let’s move onto the university.
KUL is among the top 50 and as my dad tells me: it’s the Oxford of Belgium. The university basically takes up the whole city and each bus-stop is an experience. There is no older population to be seen; only students who know each other. It’s tranquil yet animated in Leuven! Oh, and I was a day student unlike evening students, who took part in evening activities too, or night students, who spent the night in dorms. In other words, while my friends were playing board games and taking naps, I was catching a train back home.
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12 hours 47 minutesvery nice post
very nice post