Members of the 63rd Georgia Governor’s Honors Program Communicative Arts major pose in the Georgia Southern University Student Union during Coffeehouse, where they showcased pieces they had been working on throughout the summer on July 7. Editor-in-Chief Lea D’Angelo attended the program as a Communicative Arts major and found the experience different from that of a regular academic environment. “For the first time in my high school experience, I didn’t feel like I was contributing because I had to, or that the people around me were only engaged because it felt like a requirement,” D’Angelo wrote. “None of it was guided by GPA or fueled by the need to have the best resume. We were all there because we wanted to be.”
Photo courtesy of Lea D’Angelo
Editor-in-Chief Lea D’Angelo discusses how her experience at the 63rd Georgia Governor’s Honors Program redefined how she views the classroom experience.
It’s been months since the 63rd Georgia Governor’s Honors Program ended in July, and I could still talk about it for hours.
The summer program brings together gifted and talented students from across Georgia to spend four weeks immersed within their selected major. After going through the multi-step application process my junior year, I attended the program this summer as a Communicative Arts major and walked away with a completely different perspective on what the classroom experience can look like.
I could talk about the lifelong friendships I made or the interesting classes I took about niche areas of the literary and film worlds.
Or, I could talk about the smaller moments, like staying up late talking to my hallmates, or our Resident Assistant buying us supplies to make ice cream sundaes one Sunday night.
A gallery of photos show Editor-in-Chief Lea D’Angelo’s time at the 63rd Governor’s Honors Program. Photos courtesy of Lea D’Angelo
But what might take longer to surface in conversation is that, for the first time in my high school experience, I didn’t feel like I was contributing because I had to, or that the people around me were only engaged because it felt like a requirement.
All we had to do was show our passion.
GHP wasn’t like school. Sure, we spent all day in classes and experienced sleep deprivation at an all-time high, but the focus wasn’t on engagement for the sake of a grade. It was nearly 600 students learning because they chose to. There wasn’t a pressure to prove anything. All of us had already gotten into GHP, which required going through multiple rounds of interviews and applications. Now, all we had to do was what we knew best: show our passion.
Our excitement came out in lively discussions and debates rarely paused by the awkward gaps that grace most high school classroom seminars. It came out when we all showed up for each other’s performances and exhibitions, both out of curiosity and a want to genuinely support the people we cared about, even if we knew next to nothing about their major.
None of it was guided by GPA or fueled by the need to have the best resume. We were all there because we wanted to be, and that’s not something that can be said for a lot of high school classrooms or activities, a feat determined by both the students engaging in the activities and the teachers behind the lessons.
