Splash, a day-long event where high school students can take classes taught by undergraduates from various colleges and universities, will be hosted on campus for the first time. The program was originally scheduled to begin on Feb. 27, but The Center for Social Concern (CSC) pushed the start date back to April 23 in order to accommodate changes made to class structure and size.
Splash was founded at MIT and is now offered annually at more than 20 universities in 10 states across the country. While there were originally over 70 classes registered as part of the Hopkins program, Splash has downsized to offering just 43 classes in response to the relatively small number of students who signed up to participate.
Sophomore Eileen Yu, president of Splash, talked about her own experience going to the MIT Splash program when she was a high school student and how it inspired her to start the program here at Hopkins.
“I attended the Splash programs at MIT, Princeton and Columbia and absolutely loved them,” Yu said. “The idea of Splash is to give high schoolers a chance to learn about and discuss topics that they normally would not come into contact with in high school classrooms and also to give students at universities a chance to share what they are passionate about. When I saw the varied interests and passions of the students here at Hopkins, I knew that we could host a great program and really influence and encourage many high school students.”
Junior Sophia Doerr, one of Splash’s student recruiters and a member of its administration board, originally spent most of her volunteer time at Baltimore’s 29th Street Community Center. When she was no longer able to volunteer there, she focused on recruiting students for Splash. Doerr discussed how she felt Splash could make an important impact in the Baltimore community and provide a new way for Hopkins students to make a difference.
“Sometimes there’s a disconnect between JHU and the community, which [is why] programs like these are really wonderful. It’s wonderful to see that actually happening,” Doerr said. “And I think sometimes we forget. We get so involved in our academics or things like that, and we forget that we could share this with them, we could inspire people, we could really have a huge impact on the community.”
Yu addressed the safety issues that had prompted the delay and discussed how the organization will move forward.
“It was delayed because the CSC wants to install certain procedures to ensure the safety of all of the high school students before they come to campus,” she wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “This would include drawing up liability waivers for them, writing up emergency exit plans in case of a fire or other emergencies and possibly even devising a system to keep track of each high school student with our volunteers. We completely agree with the CSC to push back the date if that means that our program will be safer.”
The CSC helped students draft liability waivers and exit plans, a new challenge for the administration. She said Hopkins wasn’t able to help as much as Splash would have liked in the past year, but that was changing, especially with the inclusion of liability forms and exit procedures. New support for the program could make it possible for high school students to attend for free. Doerr emphasized that the administration thought this was the best way to make Splash accessible to the community.
“We also really wanted to make Splash free to Baltimore students and the smaller numbers this year mean that we’ll be able to do that,” she said. “We really want to reach out to underprivileged students in the area, and it’s really difficult to do that, to make it free for everybody and to run it and to rent things and get them food and get them T-shirts.”
Freshman Lalit Varada, who will be teaching a class on computer algorithms during the day-long event, talked about why he was interested in being a part of this new program.
“I really liked the Splash project because it was able to get college students and high school students interested in academics or teaching in general,” Varada said. “It just seemed like a fun thing to do, to just have a day to just teach a classes.”
Doerr also discussed why she thought Hopkins students in particular could service their community in a unique way through Splash.
“Hopkins students... have tons of different clubs, and we all have so many different interests. And I feel like the student life on campus is really interesting and distinct and people have a lot of aspirations to start things,” she said. “And so I think it’s special at Hopkins because all of those different clubs can be involved in Splash. Someone from every single club can teach something that they’re interested in. They can all be integrated into this huge event and we can share it with the community, too.”
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.