Photo by Jo Elliott ’28
The annual LEAP symposium was held on Friday, Oct. 16 of this year. Students presented information about their LYNK-funded summer experiences.
By Jo Elliott ’28
News Section Editor
On Oct. 16, the annual LEAP symposium took place on campus. The symposium itself is a “premier showcase of students’ summer work, organized by and for Mount Holyoke students,” according to the College’s website. The website states that the LEAP symposium is used as “a powerful vehicle that demonstrates the strong connections between academic work at Mount Holyoke College and its practical application in the world.”
The symposium was an opportunity for the College’s students to present a learned experience from their respective internships. Most of those who presented at the symposium who did not have an academic grant or summer research project were part of the Lynk Program. Lynk is a program that provides every sophomore and junior with funding and a toolkit of resources to help them get the most out of an internship experience. The funding includes about 4,000 dollars for domestic internships and 4,600 dollars for international internships which awards more money if needed in larger international cities to accommodate for the high cost of living.
Following the internship experience, “each student presents what they have learned to the College during the LEAP symposium, Senior symposium or another qualified event.” Additionally, the recipients of the Lynk Program are enrolled in a course where they reflect on the internship experience, “such as COLL-211, Reflecting Back, or a capstone course,” according to the College’s website.
The “Education Everywhere: Teaching Internationally and Domestically” panel presented at LEAP reflected on the work of students both internationally and domestically in education. Working with grades K-12 and even college students, the panel shared the goal of public service and community collaboration, developing curriculums and teaching students a variety of subjects. MHN interviewed a few of the presenters on this panel; here’s what they had to say about their experiences.
Speaking on behalf of her internship experience, Kairi Harness ’28 said, “My summer experience was in concert with creating a curriculum about disability, inclusion and media literacy. I also worked at Cornell over the summer.”
Another student in the panel, Juno Forgues-Gilbert ’28 shared, “My summer experience was working with an educational nonprofit called Breakthrough Collaborative where I got to be a social studies teacher as well as take part in a lot of their community events and community building.”
Celine Lubin ’28 said, “I was a co-teacher and teacher’s assistant at the Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School for middle school and ninth grade students. I had the opportunity of making a curriculum centered around social [and] emotional learning.”
Reflecting on her experiences, Harness said, “It was a lot of work but it was worth it in my opinion. … When you find stuff you enjoy, you’re willing to look past a lot.”
Forgues-Gilbert said, “My major takeaways [were] the importance of challenging yourself and engaging in things that may be difficult when you truly care about them. I just kind of learned the importance of being really open and honest with your students, and trying to give them the space where they can be themselves, truly, and creating a community where people can be comfortable.”
Reflecting on their preparations for the symposium, Forgues-Gilbert said, “College 211 was a really great preparation process. I appreciated that we had such an open and receptive audience to be able to feel comfortable in that space.”
Harness agreed, saying, “The reflections are nice. I feel like I had to do a lot more work for the classes than I actually needed to present, but at least being overprepared is better than being underprepared. Presenting wasn’t as scary as I thought it was.”
Those in attendance of the symposium had exceptionally high praise for all the students who presented their summer experiences. Rome Erilus ’27 said, “I liked how passionate [the presenters] were; they were all very excited to be there and very excited to talk about what they were doing.”
Meanwhile, Chloe Miller ’28 said, “I was so impressed by how much work everybody not only put into their presentation, but you were able to tell how hard they worked over the summer and how much they learned from their experiences.”
Sophie Francis ’28 contributed fact-checking.
