This summer, several exceptional Western students attended Governor’s School.  Before the start of the summer, the Western Hemisphere interviewed two of the students attending Governor’s School, juniors Meg Richey and Maygan Reynolds.  Now, they’re back to share the experience.

Every year Mrs. Zoe Padrón  supervises applications for Governor’s School. Typically, students go to Humanities, Math, Science & Technology, and Visual & Performing Arts. However, she also gets applications to other Governor’s School programs, such as Health & Medical Sciences, NASA, and Agriculture.

Padrón explained, “They are for students who have a real passion for those subjects and people really love it, they say it’s like the best thing ever!”  “Students can’t go back to Governor’s School, unfortunately. But they don’t want to leave- I think the people are their favorite parts, followed by getting to study things they’re passionate about.”

Meg Richey attended Governor’s School for Math, Technology, and Science. Richey’s main class was Order of Magnitude Physics which she found fascinating and in an optional class she learned about credit card fraud and hacking. Richey had many favorite parts of Gov School, but her absolute favorite was “having those friendships that were challenging, and stimulating and make you think a lot.”

“It was great, having kids that are interested in the same thing I am,” Richey said. “It was a really awesome experience and I was really blessed having met so many people I could relate to at an intellectual level. You could be walking along and you would overhear somebody talking about something and people would come up and be like ‘oh I’ve done this really cool thing’. These conversations would just flow out and they were so engaging! If I could do it again, I totally would, oh my gosh, I would totally do it again.”

“If I could do it again, I totally would, oh my gosh, I would totally do it again.”

-Meg Richey

Maygan Reynolds attended Governor’s School for Humanities. Her favorite class was World Cinema, where she learned about the history of movies and how they’ve changed our general perception of the world and history.  Another aspect Reynolds’ enjoyed was that there weren’t just humanities students in her group, there was also the theater and arts departments, and everyone got to share their experiences

“There were too many great parts to find one,” Reynolds said. “I really enjoyed the conversations I was able to have and the different people I was able to meet and connect with.”

The worst part? Reynolds hated thinking about the end of Governor’s School. “I didn’t want to leave,” she said.