Three HS juniors to attend governor’s school
Three Hot Springs World Class High juniors have been selected to attend the Arkansas Governor’s School at Arkansas Tech University on July 5.
Staff members nominate Governor’s School attendees who must complete a formal and rigorous application process within their content area to be accepted.
The students will attend alongside other juniors chosen from across Arkansas for four weeks, July 5 to Aug. 1, for the 42nd Annual AGS event at ATU.
Students Catie Canu will study in the field of choral music, Marlissa Archie in social science, and Liliana Boekhout in natural science.
“I feel like it’s a great experience and opportunity to be able to partake in a program such as Governor’s School,” Archie said.
“It’s a chance to kind of learn about subjects and topics that we don’t really get to dive into in a regular school setting. I’m super excited to learn new things and meet new people at the Governor’s School,” she said.
Canu said to be able to be around students who are interested, passionate and dedicated is “refreshing” because
students don’t get that a lot of times in public school.
“It gives me hope that there are a lot of people like me out there that I’ll get to work within the professional field,” she said.
Boekhout said the environment at the Governor’s School will be “amazing.”
“It really helps you prepare for college, especially since the topics that we’re going under is something that we plan on majoring in,” she said.
“The four weeks obviously away from your family is not something that we usually do. It’s really good to prepare us for college next year,” Boekhout said.
Archie’s field is social sciences, which has many topics such as humanities, politics, and how society works and runs, which is something she is interested in diving into in the future, she said.
“To learn at a high level, and those topics in that area would be really helpful to me, as well as like what I’ll be doing, and what information I’ll be learning as I progress in the academic area,” Archie said.
“I’m really excited and looking forward to getting a deeper understanding into the social sciences and how it works in the world,” she said.
For Canu, being a music student means mainly working individually unless they are actually in a choir singing with other people, she said.
“You focus on how you’re growing and learning and developing your technique. I go to the Governor’s School; they have pretty much an equal number of genders and voice parts,” Canu said.
“Hopefully, I’ll be able to work with someone of an opposite gender for me, which I’ve never really gotten to do before, which will definitely prepare me for the field I want to go in where there are a lot of duets and working with people,” she said.
Boekhout said she wants to experience the research part of natural science. By the end of the four weeks, the students in the natural science fields have a project due.
“It’s with a group, and so I think it’s going to be really good to collaborate with people that have the same ideas and similar interests as well as doing” hands-on experiments, she said.
All attendees must be tested for COVID-19 a week before July 5, and if the attendees were vaccinated, then they have to show the vaccination card.
Canu, Archie, and Boekhout have received their first round of vaccinations and are currently waiting for their second round, they said.