Week 1

It was the evening of my first day of the Cryptography course I was taking through Stanford’s summer pre-collegiate program. Most students were still unpacking (at least my roommate was), so I left my dorm with my laptop, found a sunny spot in a corner, and started working on an article. I admit, I was feeling a bit lost. Just then, a counselor and three other participants came along and sat on the benches next to me. Before I knew it, we were all in a deep conversation about math and logic problems.

The first week went on like this. We had classes in the morning, then study sessions in the afternoon, followed by an activity session in the evening. We gathered for house meetings every night at 9:30 p.m. And then there was a cluster dinner every Wednesday.

The kudos box was launched on our fifth day in the program. The first day, there was only a penny in there (people had definitely misunderstood its purpose). The kudos box was actually used to collect compliments and praise written by housemates for each other. The next day there were 10 kudos in the box for one single person (some of that was spam, by the way).

We ate at the Arrilaga Family Dining Commons, where I had pizza for breakfast for the first time in my life!

Week 2

During the second week, I discovered the ice dispenser machine. The problem was that it was hidden away in the corner and no one had spotted it yet. Then one day someone left the ice dispenser machine open, and then there was water everywhere.

The counselors added new rules to our program constitution, and the house meetings took up some weird issues:

1. No climbing tress.

2. No doing laundry at 2 a.m. (someone actually did that).

3. Something about missing tissue roles from the bathroom (they were found on the sofa in the third week – turns out someone was using toilet paper for a project).

4. No more than three people getting on the hammock together.

By this time, everybody had started forming groups and had found their own corners in the common room.

Week 3

We spent most of the last week working on our presentations. My group was working on quantum cryptography, and we ended up staying up late in our dorm room working on our presentation over Google slides.

I also attended the tie-dye activity, one of many activities we could participate in during our time at Stanford. I reached the venue, and I found that I was more interested in writing on T-shirts than tie-dying them. So, I designed a T-shirt on cryptography, while I got my roommate to do the tie-dying.

On the last day of camp, my friend and I wrote 45 kudos – one to every single person in our house. During my time at Stanford, I found the friends I had been looking for, and an insight into a subject that I loved. The fact that I might never meet these friends again felt like too much for me to handle.

Eventually, I went back to India, started school and new activities, and things went back to normal. But here is something I can truly say: “I found a home at Stanford.”

No matter where you are from or what your passions are, you would fit in at Stanford. Whether you want to discuss logic problems, art, or a double-chocolate brownie recipe, you would find the right people. I would definitely recommend the program to my fellow high schoolers. If you are searching for a summer filled with fun, learning, and friends, Stanford’s Summer Pre-Collegiate Institutes might be for you. If you do end up going to Stanford, please say hi to the bronze guys at Memorial Court.