By Jonah Nguyen-Conyers

My experience as an OSSE Scholar at Northwestern University was pretty okay, everything has their goods and bads. OSSE Scholars are students who attend DC schools, and are from low income families and are looking to go to college, and have shown dedication to education with high school accomplishments through GPA, and other successful elements of a student.

Those who are selected as OSSE Scholars are sent to prestigious colleges over the summer for free. Students can stay at these colleges for 2-6 weeks, and study almost any summer course. The course I chose was a Level 1 Japanese course. Surprisingly, there were only 3 students, including myself.

I wish in the summer program at Northwestern there was more diversity, and a cast of people who were not from the same background, but there were some fun people that I had fun moments with during my time there. We still keep in touch. That was not a good part, but the best part was learning Japanese, and being able to practice and be more comfortable with the language I love to learn so much. I was able to be tested in a prestigious college, and speak with other high achieving students, even though I did have some hiccups in my study habits during my time there. I had two other classmates and my teacher, and we met 5 times a week, and I had so much fun. I felt that I learned a lot, but it sure was quite difficult. I do wish there were more people in my class, but I like the closeness I had with my classmates, and I can tell they felt the same in the discussions we had during class.

As a student, I was able to see the next steps of my education, and what the expectations might be for me, and it allowed me to understand the expectations of being a college student. This program was able to leave me with valuable knowledge and valuable experience like no other. I have learned a lot and know what I learned will help me reach my goals in later life. I can’t be any more grateful for this experience.