Scholar Spotlight – Reflection on January’s Winston Salem Saturday Summit

Jackson, College LAUNCH for Leadership (Winston-Salem)

During our last Saturday Summit, I was fortunate enough to learn about some of the many different experiences that refugees today have to face. The January 11th Summit was very engaging with real-life simulations that ultimately helped us, the students, make individually tough decisions that helped shine a light on our different beliefs. For this simulation, we were tasked with choosing four categories of people we care about, material items that we liked, our beliefs, and who we are to others. We then wrote all of these items on index cards. At random, we had to discard cards without knowing what we were truly giving up. In order to continue, we had to keep losing cards. This showed us how much refugees are putting on the line in order to take a chance at making it to the U.S. 

To bring the Summit to a close, we had an insightful panel of college students to help answer some of our questions about the transition from high school to college. One note that was made really changed how I view my search for colleges – “Stress is a part of college, but the way you manage it can affect how well you are able to thrive.” This impacted me because I was under the assumption that college would be a lighter stress load than high school. Now that I know what to expect, I feel that I am well prepared for this transition. Overall, this Summit was a special experience that I am thankful to be a part of.