 We spend all year preparing for the next summer and so we're in the midst of that right now and we're already really excited about seeing some new students next year. Alicia you could go to the next slide. So tonight we are going to give you a little bit more information about our programs and I'll go ahead and introduce myself and let my colleagues introduce themselves as well before we jump in. My name is Julia Fiori. I'm the summer programs manager and I've been at NCSSM for almost five years now and let's see. Alicia would you like to introduce yourself? Sure thing well good evening everyone my name is Alicia Stokely and I am the associate manager for summer and extended programs and now I'm going to turn it over to Blake. Hey good evening everyone thanks for joining us on this Wednesday evening. I am the associate manager of summer extended programs here at NCSSM in Durham and I've been here just a little bit over a year. So the three of us Alicia Blake and I work closely together to plan and run the summer programs with summer accelerator being our big focus. We also of course have an amazing team of colleagues at NCSSM that provide additional support for our programs but the three of us are the folks you will hear from the most. So tonight we're just going to tell you a little bit more about our programs what to expect for next summer, the application process and feel free to ask us questions you can type in the chat. We'll be trying to monitor that throughout the evening. So don't be shy if you have questions or comments. We're going to try to fit a lot of information into an hour so I'm sure other things are going to come up and we'll also share our contact information at the end so that you can reach us afterwards if you think of other things later. All right next slide. So first is our early accelerator program and this is a program for rising fifth and sixth grade students, day camp and this is our newest program. We have only been running early accelerator programs for a couple of years now. We've kind of started with high school, expanded the middle school and now we've expanded to rising fifth and sixth graders. So the students get to choose a class during the application process, choose a class that they're excited about and interested in and then they're in that class for the week. The classes run from 9 a.m. to 3 30 p.m. and we have a break in the middle of the day for lunch and some games running around outside if the weather's nice, getting to interact with students from the other classes as well and just getting a break from the classroom. So these are hands-on interactive classes that are really different from what they are going to be getting in school and we will be holding these classes this summer in Durham and in Morganton at our new campus. So we're very excited that NCSSM is now going to have two campuses. We will be among the first users of the Morganton campus. It's a beautiful site, a beautiful facility and we're really excited to be there and I see in the chat no Brevard then that is correct. So next summer our plan is not to run any programs at Brevard College. In the past we have run two weeks of programs per summer at Brevard College but with bringing on Morganton we decided that next summer we're going to focus on that and it doesn't mean we'll never be back in Brevard but for next summer that's the plan, just the two campuses. So another quick note is that it's a day camp so students have to be coming to and from campus every day but there's no residency restriction. Students could live anywhere. Sometimes we have students come and visit their grandparents and stay with them for the week and attend the program if they live in another city or state and this is for rising fifth and sixth grade the early accelerator date camp. All right so I will have the pleasure of talking with you about our summer accelerator program for what we like to call in-house our middle school group. So this is for rising seventh through ninth graders. Again this is a great way for these students to get an enhanced one experience or a virtual experience to interesting STEM topics that they probably will not be at their respective institutions. So during this for our residential courses they consist of one week so you will bring your lovely child to either our MTSS and Durham location or our Morgan's location drop them off they will interact with us as well as our summer staff engage in extracurricular activities and then start their week off in their respective course topics. On that Friday that will be the day where you actually pick up your child and from the experience that they receive that week with also the extracurricular activities they'll be able to kind of give you a synopsis of what they went through day by day including that topic. Now for our middle school portion of summer accelerator there is no online component so if they're doing residential they will just come from that Sunday to that Friday and we'll not have to worry about anything online. Now we do offer fully online courses now this will consist of two weeks now that first week your child will be given at least five to seven hours of work that they will do by themselves. Some courses may require some type of deadline within those days per the instructor's request. On that second week they will have required meeting times where they actually meet with the other students in their respective class to talk about the engaging and exciting things that they have already learned before and actually start to do projects or quizzes or lecture series from that respective instructor. Towards the end of that week that Friday that will actually conclude that class so within those two weeks there are no work during the weekend unless that student will like to catch up with something that they're doing during that first week when they're working by themselves. Now again this is our middle school group so this is courses that are open for rising seventh through ninth graders. Now the caveat of this like we've mentioned before for our early accelerator is that participants do not have to be residents of North Carolina so as being known as NCSSM we are known to only take students from North Carolina. One of the reasons why we have this program created is to reach far and beyond North Carolina and to spread the fruit of our labor and the incredible staff and instructors that we have in North Carolina. Now let's talk about our high school portion now this concludes our rising tenth through twelfth graders so still that hands-on experience just like you're getting in that middle school group but just a tad more rigorous. So in this program students will learn together um some of them will be doing more so project-based more so than being by themselves. Now unlike our middle school portion our rising tenth through twelfth graders will have a two-week online component to complete before they step foot do our lovely halls at NCSSM. So during those two weeks they will work at their own pace um with the deadlines that are set by the instructor per their request they are going through a wealth of information and research all that encompass together will help them once they step foot on our campus that's when they start to do the real work with each other with that instructor helping them along side by side throughout that week. So just like our middle school program they will you will drop them off on that Sunday afternoon and you will pick them up on that Friday afternoon and while they are with the school make sure that they're in the best care possible while they're doing class in the morning have the extracurricular time with us in the evening time and when you get them on Friday they will have a lot to share with you. Now if you're unable to come to our campus just like our middle school group we also have a online portion for our high school group. Now this consists of three weeks so they'll kind of follow it in the lines of that two-week component while they're working by themselves individually probably five to seven hours of coursework per week. Now during that third and final week they will have required meeting time and meeting with the people that are in that course and their instructor kind of getting that virtual hands-on attention with that core subject that's where they can ask more questions to their instructors and really get into the course with different projects and things of that sort. Like stated before all of our programs will be held not only at our during campus but at our lovely new morgans in campus so we're really excited to bring that on board and to have people stay in our dorms for the first time ever so that's something that your child can say once they leave our program next summer that they were the first ever ever to stay at NCSS in morgenton. So again for our high school group we open these courses to rising 10th through 12th graders and again participants do not have residents of north carolina. We offer our courses to anyone in the entire world so if you know anybody that lives out of state even out of this country that would enjoy this experience of coming to our campus or even participating in our online structure of programs definitely send them the link to our website give them our contact information so we can pull them on board. Now let's look at some pictures so these pictures definitely encompass the student life experience that we try to inhabit on our campus as you can see at the top they are working hard in their group working with their project and making sure that they are retaining that information that they have learned from their instructor but at the bottom you can also see that they work hard and they play hard too so we also have some candid photos of our students networking and learning about each other through various extracurricular activities that we hold on campus particularly lunch and dinner time that seems to be kind of the favorite where everybody can just kind of chill and have open space to get to know you. Of course with the recent pandemic a lot of summer programming was canceled in the year of 2020 2021 was our first official school year back in the summer time so students were elated to see other people their same age and able to interact with them in class so we were just so grateful that we were able to pull that off for them and hopefully for summer 2022 we'll be able to do the same thing. Now here are some quotes from our students I like to call this straight from the source um some are from participants and others are from parents so let's get down to it. The first one is I enjoyed the case studies in the class they were fun and an enjoyable way to learn epidemiology. I love playing basketball in the gym and going out to pelicans and glowing the dark captured the flag was a fun activity too so this is from a 2021 participants of summer accelerator. Now as you can see from this quote there is a mixture of things that this student did in class as well as things that they did outside of class so again going back to that student life experience we want to make sure that we are not only filling up that student's time when they are on our campus but we want to make sure that we are getting them lifelong memories that they can take with them once they leave us and then hopefully come back for summers um before and to come so they will be able to interact with those same students. Let's go to the next one. I think the fact that I got to take a break from home for a whole week made friends and spend time with them. The whole experience built up more day by day and class was actually so fun. The atmosphere was just so relaxing but I still learned so much so again going back with that um you play hard but you work harder. We try to and pass that with our students here at summer accelerator. Having a great work life balance which I'm speaking to myself when I say that we're trying to also pass that down to our students when they're coming to our um program as well so it's just something to think about. Our next one being able to meet new friends that I will likely spend time outside of camp with learning new things having the feel of being away from home in a college-ish setting so I really like this quote because it really um speaks a lot about just from that student perspective and I like the play of words college-ish setting um and that's what if the institution is when a lot of people look at the institution from afar and driving by the road or just taking a preview of our website a lot of people think it's a college or a university um and some people um once we start to tell them like no we have 11th and 12th graders in the academic year um they are baffled and astonished by that and then when we take it a step further and let them know that you know they have their own dorm rooms it kind of um puts in the mindset of okay well these students when they're coming um to school here that they get a taste of that college life and um for a lot of them it helps them transition to that next step the same thing with residential programs for summer camp staying away from home getting that experience to meet new people from different walks of life different cultural backgrounds that's your taste of college right there so if you are somebody that has been a little bit anxious of being too far away from home this could be your your trial run um per se where you're able to learn about an exciting course meet new people boy and kind of see and get a feel of if this area is something that you want to relocate to once you um matriculate and go to college or um getting your feet wet for if you want to go forward even further away all right now i will turn it over to julia all right thanks alisha and i'm just going to also verbally answer some of the questions that i've been getting in the chat some of them have been to everybody and some of them have been direct messages and i'm guessing that some people might have similar questions to one another so i want to just um clarify um our kind of three different um groupings so we have for rising fifth and sixth graders we have a day camp program for rising seventh through ninth graders we have a residential and an online program and so a class is either residential or online and we will be sharing the schedule out um in a couple of weeks and so then you can see the course schedule and choose um and then for rising tenth through twelfth grade the classes are also either residential or online and the residential the residential program for that age group also has um two weeks prior to coming to campus the students begin an asynchronous online portion so that they can get the background knowledge before they come to campus and jump in so um i'm hoping that that helps clarify a little bit um and then we will be going over um admissions criteria and how to apply um and i'm seeing if there are any other questions um yeah and then another another question that was asked is um do they have um do they get credit um for the course and these are not credit courses these are enrichment courses um however we do provide a certificate of completion and um the student can choose to share that with their school or share that with another program if that's helpful um and students do receive a pass fail grade um four sorry four seventh grade and up fifth and sixth grade there's no pass fail grade um but we we do expect the students to participate and enjoy themselves in the program um and um and then a couple other questions um so students in our program are um typically very excited about doing academic work and we get a lot of students who are very advanced academically um our courses are designed to be challenging and rigorous and so we do find that a lot of students who are advanced in school um do get a lot out of this and are challenged um but uh you know at the same time everybody's coming from different background in terms of what their school is like and what other experiences they've had and i think our instructors do a really great job of paying attention to the individual students and um and really um getting everybody engaged in the content um whether you know they've you know they're in high school and they've taken all the ap classes or whether you know their school doesn't even offer it um and um and yes students can take multiple weeks um those are each signed up for individually all right and now i'm going to give you a little sneak peek of some of the classes we're going to be offering this summer we've got a really great lineup coming we're just confirming all the details before we officially release the schedule with the course descriptions um but for fifth and sixth grade the early accelerator program our very popular full steam ahead class is coming back this class is a kind of general science class where the students cover a number of different stem and steam topics so the a is for arts um which i love having the interdisciplinary um classes in our program um and so full steam ahead Hogwarts Express has a harry potter theme so that's a lot of fun too um and then designed for change environmental and social justice students get to work together to tackle big problems and so they are um deciding which problems they want to address um and these can be local problems global problems they it's really student driven they research the problems and they design solutions together um and then for seventh to ninth grade we are having another biotechnology um class come back so this class is a lot of fun the students do hands-on lab activities they explore um microbes genomics fermentation um as well as other topics it's very hands-on and then um the space science lab class is taught by a Brevard college physics professor and um the students get to work with their own uh telescopes and learn how to use them and study um the science of space it's very very cool and um then for the tenth to twelfth grade um i'm very excited that we're going to be able to offer a couple different types of neuroscience classes this summer um so one of them comes from a more experiential side where the students are um learning neuroscience and psychology concepts and then the other side is the more experimental side um which is uh involves cockroaches so if you're a little squeamish um maybe you don't want to take that one but um but the students actually get to um learn about neuroscience using cockroaches and then lastly um we are going to have a new class this summer um on python and data science and this is taught by one of our ncssm math instructors um who is so passionate about math and about coding um that it is going to be a super interesting class so i'm very excited about all of that and um some of the classes to answer the question in the chat some of the classes are taught by ncssm teachers some are taught by other teachers so we have a big variety um most of them are taught by ncssm instructors um some are taught by other teachers from other schools some are taught by college professors some are taught by industry um and non-profit experts um in their particular field um and so they can bring a slightly different approach to the content are there any questions that i'm missing okay i think i'm good for now i think it's on to blake that's right um so i'm going to go over just a little bit about how to apply for our program um part one there's a couple different parts first of all and part one is more of a um general information you know you're doing your research on the website about which courses you want to you want to look at and select and apply for uh and then you know your contact information email address all that good stuff um and when you get to like the courses that you are um interested in we ask you that you rank the ones that you would like to attend in order of preference um so you don't need to rank every course you see but if you're interested in three of them just rank one two and three um that the link right there is the link that will get you to the application there is also a way to do that through our website um on ncssm.edu on the summer accelerator page there's a direct link where you can um go that route as well go ahead and go to the next slide for me all right so the um second part of the application and just to clarify this is just for the seventh to twelfth grade students and this is to be done by the actual student the first part needs to be filled out by a parent or guardian um so you in the past we have called this portion of the application essay questions but we have changed it to short answer questions because we have found that the word essay is um you know there it can be very intimidating we don't want it to be intimidating um so short answer questions what we really want from that is you know no more than three or four five sentences in some cases um and the questions you see on the screen right here are the questions that we will ask you to um answer on your application um just to clarify um the fifth and sixth graders do not need to do this part just to be clear on that um however if you were an early accelerator student last year and you're transitioning into the accelerator program we wouldn't ask you to do that um I know there's some alumni on here as well if you were an alumni of the program and you were in the program in years past you do not have to complete the short answer questions I have a couple of frequently asked questions FAQs um to go through here when we get a lot is will I receive credit as as mentioned a little bit earlier our courses are past fail for the uh for grades every student will get a certificate of completion um and it's up to your school whether you know they count it as credit for online student for ncssm online students the course will show up on your transcript um to count towards credit for your program but it does not count um for your gpa all right another one we get a lot uh is can I enroll in classes with overlapping dates I think we had this question in the chat a little bit earlier absolutely is the answer um you might not want to enroll in classes that have overlapping um required class meeting times for example um you know you don't want to obviously don't want to enroll in two residential programs at the same time or a class that has meeting times um online while you're in residential either so um just make sure you're double checking the dates and and the meeting times before you start the site applying for multiple courses um um this is basically a long answer as as uh in regards to COVID-19 for we don't know yet um you know it's an ever ever changing situation and we follow the UNC systems guidance as well as CDC guidance um and we will make that decision um as far as protocols in the spring we will email out the the regulations and rules and what we expect from our students coming to the residential programs um in the spring another one we get a lot is does our does participating in the summer accelerator program help me get into the online or residential program here in NCSSM um short answer it is is no um we know it you know it appreciate that it shows interest in the end the topics that NCSSM has um but that you're not going to be given special treatment um or referred to admissions for attending our programs all right and just for um as far as scholarship and discount opportunities we have those all listed out on our website here um and they should be pretty much they will be up to date sooner rather than later so back on speaking again I am seeing there are still some questions in the chat um Julia you're beating me to all of them so I'm going to let you keep going and I'm going to keep with the presentation um so of course the question that we have been getting the most um ever since we ended our past summer is when are we going to release courses and when are we going to open up the application um so as you can see right here um our release date is as followed December 8th or by December 8th we will have all courses uploaded to our website so you'll be able to see the full schedule for both our Duraly um Morgan and our online programs and that concludes also early accelerator and summer accelerator and I know some people up here are probably interested instead of just them that application will also open on December 8th as well so definitely put that in your calendar if you need a reminder um please make sure that you have signed up to our mailing list we will be sending um an email out and I will personally send an email to um all of the people that registered for this information session just so you are made aware that um our application and our courses are available for you to view so once it is up definitely make sure that you take a peek at it ask um your potential student that's right beside you um of what um they would love to do and definitely sign up so speaking of step up to STEM so of course this information session it is catered to summer accelerator and early accelerator but we want to make sure um that we were also representing our other program that we um held in our department so step is a free one week residential summer program for underrepresented minority students now that consists of Native American Hispanic and also African American students so with this program there is um a certain um other elements to it as far as criteria so in order to apply to this program you have to be a current group reader or a rising ninth grader at the point um of that application um process now these courses are taught by our skilled instructors at NCSSM um and um since we are in the process of expanding um our courses will not only be taught by NCSSM instructors but also other college um professors at an institution that we are partnering with so I don't want to give away too much during this information session um since we will have a brand new um updated site for step to stem with all of the exciting things that we're preparing for it there are new things coming along the way so with this students will learn exciting real world subjects um to build their skills in STEM um the premise of this program is to help immerse um these students in STEM so one day they can think about um applying to college and actually majoring in STEM or maybe think about a career in the STEM field so we kind of want to get those creative juices flowing um with them and then also connect with them to make sure that they have the resources that they need um to matriculate um through high school and through their their STEM courses so for all of the new information that we're going to have to step up the stem it is currently being updated at the moment um it does have some current information um but more information will be soon to come um they will also host their own information sessions so please be on the lookout on that website to see that date and time so the website is ncssm.edu slash step up and I am going to put that in the chat so you'll be able to click on it at your leisure and also view it um if that is something um to your liking also we want you to follow us and and stay connected so one of the things that we try to do um is to make sure that we have the student experience in person and then also virtually so what better way to do that is through social media so we have three social media accounts associated with summer accelerator and um with them they all have their own purpose so you get to pick and choose which one um best suits your needs so for our twitter account you can follow that account if you want to learn about interesting science facts or inspirational quotes study tips for in person and online and more um like our facebook page if you just want straight up news about what's happening with our programs when we release those core states important updates let's say that we are running a special on a particular course and also a chance to win prizes also talk about summer accelerator and how you feel about it and lastly um follow our instagram page to see what happens this summer accelerator in real time so during the academic year we're um doing some other um promotional posts and then also some weird science facts and um also core spotlights and and stuff their spotlights but when the framer comes around we actually get live feed into what's happening on our campuses you get to meet our residential counselors and kind of get a little taste of who is with your student as they are with us on campus as well as seeing what they're doing um seeing candid photos of them in class and also when they are participating in those extracurricular activities that I was mentioning before so definitely make sure that you're you're following that um and seeing all the good work that we are doing here at summer accelerator so at this point I know we've um answered a lot of questions in the chat but we do want to give time at the end for you to ask any more questions that you may have had um as you can see for more info we do have our website listed sbssum.edu slash accelerator um in the chat before I did put an email address so this is an email address that will come to all three of us um to make sure that we are keeping up with the email volume and also making sure that we are answering them in a timely fashion it is best to email the summer account so at any given time um one of us will be able to respond back to you so definitely keep that in mind when you have other questions that maybe you can't think of at the moment or if you are working on that application and you need somebody to help you with at that time so if you do have any other questions just feel free to drop them in the chat um between uh julia myself um and blake um we will definitely um answer them all right yeah go ahead an overview of some of the discounts that are available we have sibling discounts we have um multi-session discounts we have an early bird discount we have alumni discounts for students who have participated in a previous year with summer accelerator um so we do have a number of different discounts um and we also have financial aid scholarships thanks to um a lot of generous donations from um anonymous trust is one of them um as well as individual families um and donors we have um a lot of financial aid available so we're really glad um that we get to offer that um the application will open december 8th we will post the um course list as soon as we confirm everything it's a lot of moving parts so i'm not going to promise that it's going to be available uh ahead of time but that's our aim so depending on uh how quickly all of our moving parts get sorted um we will go ahead and post it on our website and if you're on our email list you'll also get notifications um for when the course schedule is posted and the application is open so that you don't have to remember to keep checking the website so definitely recommend signing up for our email list if you're not already on it um alicia if folks signed up for this um session are they now on the email list they are in one of our email list that we will definitely um communicate with but they're not in the actual mailing list now some people are in this list are already a part of the mailing list they'll get double the amount of emails about our course release and um i'm just going to keep answering some questions that are coming through the chat thank you alicia um the application remains open until all the courses are full and so um some of the courses and i think i type this in the chat some of the courses do start filling as early as january um although most um classes will have some space into the spring so we have um we just leave the application open until um until it's summer basically we also have a wait list so once a class um fills up we start adding adding people to the wait list and then we'll let you know if a space opens up for your student right here's one quick question um some people have been um direct message me about and then i also saw it in the open um chat was will the recording of the meeting be sent out later and that answer is yes so we are currently recording it now after this meeting after it does its thing and says it back to me be an email or work with our team to get it uploaded to our ncsm youtube account and then we'll also upload it to our website once that is complete i will send out an email through um all the people that signed for our information session as well as our mailing list oh i see another one can a student do both step up the stem and summer accelerator and that is a big yes um and also with that we have a great number of scholarship funds that we recently received from um some great donors um and that will also be updated on our website so you can receive more information about that um i saw a lot of people um in the beginning when you were putting down where you were located um i saw a lot of people in the eastern area which really excited me um because we have a lot of funds to kind of give your way so definitely be on the lookout look at um our website look at our faqs also on the application if you are in need of financial assistance or um be interested in a scholarship please um click on that check mark on um our application and make sure that you're specifying that somewhere and then we will reach out to you personally um to help you go through that process um i see a question about the morgenton campus whether it will open on time and the answer is yes um the good news is the um staff and faculty in the morgenton campus that are already there have moved into the buildings the office building on campus um so that's very exciting um and so the original date of the morgenton campus opening was actually going to be fall 2021 and it got delayed due to the state budget so uh you know now that gave us an extra year to continue getting the campus ready for the students it there was that delay when the budget did not did not pass for so long but now um the campus is moving along really nicely and um it will be ready for our students this summer um it'll be ready before then it'll be ready this spring but um we're very excited to be some of the first occupants as well um and uh let's see what other questions do we have yeah i have a couple of them so one of them i'm reading now um my older one is an ncs system alumni will the sibling discount applied to my younger one so the answer to that is no the sibling discount will only apply if both of them together are applying um for um our programs at that time um that's when that will come into effect another um one i see is can a student drop courses after signing if another class opens up um the short answer is yes so um while you are applying we ask for your first second and third choice um because our classes you tend to fill up very quickly so as you're doing that and as we are um reviewing your application depending on if your first choice is full or not we may put you in the second one now um during that time let's say that a seat opens up in that first course and we're able to move um you over um then that would be simply okay however let's say that um you see another course that um captures your interest and you immediately drop in the course is starting kind of like a week um away um that is something that you will have to contact us to make sure that you're doing that properly because on your application there's no way for you to switch to another course so any type of switching you will have to go through us it's just kind of make sure that you keep that in mind as well and i see a question about the general timeline for the classes um while we're going to release the specific schedule um in a couple of weeks the um general schedule is going to be um June and July and so our plan is to offer programs starting June 12th if that's whatever day of the week that is um we are we're going to offer three weeks of programs in June then have one week off for the 4th of July and then offer three more weeks in in in July so uh June and July not every single week at both campuses um in Durham we are going to have six weeks for residential programs um but in morgenton it's going to be a little bit shorter it's going to be four or five weeks for residential programs and um for early accelerator day camp programs for fifth and sixth grade we're looking at five weeks in Durham and two weeks in morgenton and again not not completely finalized so don't hold me to it but um that's the current plan um yes and also while we are still kind of getting everything together um please bear with us as we are updating the the site um you may be able to see some of this happening in real time um and come to the site back later on that day and see something completely different so please bear with us during that time um the the last question that I see up here are there any financial um qualification requirements for this discount and where can we find this info um we're currently updating this information and will be located on our website as far as financial qualifications for different scholarships and financial aid um we will send that out in a separate email um if you specify on that that is something that you're interested in it's easier to do that because it is another um mouthful of information um to give to you now on our website on our admissions page and also on our FAQ page we do kind of um have a short synopsis of how that process will go you will fill out a fax application which is a kind of a third party that we have you fill out their application so they can tell us um how much we are able to give to you um but definitely if you want more um in-depth information about that when you're filling out the application please specify that you would like to apply for scholarship or financial aid assistance and yes we do have um we don't we we don't have like a payment plan that's official um but you can pay in increments that you choose as long as we get the payment by the deadline and then even if the deadline is a problem and um you're not able to make that deadline just contact us let us know and um we'll work with you on that we want your student to be able to come to the program and we don't want like a payment that's one week late to be the barrier so um definitely just contact us um if you have questions about that or um want an extension um we're happy to work with you but we do need to know in advance um because if we basically if we don't get a payment we think oh I guess that person's not coming anymore if we don't hear from you and we don't get the payment we think well it sounds like that student maybe isn't coming because we haven't heard anything so we're going to let this next person in off the waitlist and drop them from the class but if we hear from you then we can work with you on it so just keep in communication if you have questions or need anything throughout the spring leading up to the program okay oh we did get a question I know Julie you will love somebody asked how would one go about becoming a teacher and teaching a course over the summer so one of the things we're actually doing now is going over this application process so in order to be considered to teach for summer accelerator early development we even set up the STEM in some instances you will fill out a course proposal um so this course proposal pretty much lays out our program um down to um what you receive per day um the outline and the structure of the classes and our expectations from you as well um as you're filling out this form you'll be able to create your your own course um I love to say to potential instructors that you can use us as a guinea pig had a fun and exciting topic that you didn't get to explore with your students during the academic year do it here at summer accelerator um if you have something that you want to try in the future but you would like to try it on a small amount of students to make sure that you get the curriculum down pack do it here at summer accelerator so we are here to feed the young minds of North Carolina and beyond and we can't do that without um inspiring instructors that's just going to try something new or perfect something that they've already done at their perspective institutions so um and the coming year we're actually going to be doing something different with our course proposals first off there will be a website dedicated to potential instructors on our website that will be online shortly um on that we'll have a um our course proposal up there for you to read as well as all of the nitty gritty things um as well as the form that you will fill out as well and we're trying to operate that to be open um year round um so you can put your ideas when you're thinking about it also when you have the time um and then depending on the time period that you submitted um will ultimately determine when your application will be up for review so if you do have any more questions about that make sure that you send us an email at summer at ncssm.edu we can make sure that you are on our instructor list and make sure that you have um all of the materials um for you so you can read about it and then also give your shot for um the years to come and this other question is about if they're teaching assistants mentors um counselors residential life staff and the answer is yes to all of the above yeah we have um not every class has a teaching assistant it depends on the needs of that instructor and um the needs of the class for example you know some of the classes that are smaller and um can be managed by one instructor that's what it is the instructor is fine with with that some of the classes that have um that are either larger or have certain hands-on components that require additional supervision for example our creative digital fabrication class um or um heavy lab component classes um where there's a lot of materials and experiments going on um those tend to have either co-instructors um or um teaching assistants and then outside of class time students do a whole big range of activities so um we have residential life staff who lead those um they're awesome a lot of them have attended ncssm when they were in high school and now they come back because they want to give back to the school give back to the students and um also have fun because it's a really fun job um so these folks live on campus with the students to ensure their safety um they come up with creative and fun activities so that the students get um social interaction they get um kind of additional learning like outside of the classroom um I think that's one of the things that's special about our program the residential side of it is that the students really learn a lot about themselves they learn things socially because they get to meet different people and then they get to experience new things that maybe they've never tried before we take the kids on field trips we um have on-campus activities um some are more fun and silly and social some are more academic like a resume workshop um some are just relaxing like sometimes the students have had a long day and they just want to chill out in the library or they want to have a movie night and so we offer a big variety of activities um sometimes we do sports um so we offer a lot of different activities and our counselors um who lead them are really amazing and they make the program so much fun we do have classes in july so um yes I think that was our last question anybody else have any other questions and if we missed one of your questions it's not because we're trying to ignore you it's probably just because there were so many questions coming in so feel free to type it back in so that we see it now or feel free to email us um at that trimmer at ncssm.edu account all right well it is 569 on the dot um thank you so much for all of your questions just for being here um I know some people have already left um because it is a school night so thank you so much for attending again this session was recorded and will be uploaded to our site you will receive an email um once that is complete thank you again so much everyone really appreciate you coming and feel free to reach out with other questions