October 2022 Scholar Blog
Hi! My name is Kendall Lewis. As a member of the College LAUNCH for Leadership Program, I look forward to attending each of the monthly Saturday Summits. I found the October Saturday Summit to be an incredibly enriching session that was well worth my time. At the Summit, we talked about colleges and universities and what each individual should be looking for considering which colleges to apply to. Various factors such as size, rigor, location, cost, and admission requirements all are considered.
We had individual work time to generate our college lists and then we separated them into safety schools, target schools, and reach schools. We also set personal goals to work on throughout our junior year in order to help us be the most competitive candidates for the colleges on our list. I found this activity to be very helpful and it really got me thinking about what I (emphasis on that “I”) want in the college or university I choose to attend! Our second activity was the one that I enjoyed the most. It focused on the social justice issue of food insecurity and food deserts. We did a simulation that emulated the process of what it’s like to face challenges related to securing healthy and reliable foods such as not having enough food to put on the table for our families and having to go through complicated paperwork just to get access to much-needed (and limited) government assistance. This was very impactful for me. I knew this was a big challenge many families faced, but feeling it for myself was such a different experience. Mind you, I wasn’t even in the real world! This College LAUNCH Saturday Summit taught me the importance of looking out for others and making sure everyone within our community has access to nutritious and stable food sources.