Nerd Camp

If you've been reading my things shared elsewhere, you know I've been revisiting my thoughts on the rather obnoxiously named Center for Talented Youth, the summer program for "gifted kids" run by Johns Hopkins University, which my sister and I both attended for 3 summers apiece in the mid-eighties and early 1990s.

As you may have heard on This American Life some years back, Summer Camp is an American Tradition! And it is one quite dearly held in the hearts of those who once attended.

CTY-- obnoxious name and all-- may be even more dearly held, as for most of us who attended, it was the first place in the world we truly felt among peers.

In light of my own processing of models of education, I am making this entry in part to celebrate CTY and its role in my own life, but mainly to share some further reading. (Whether "High Verbal" or "High Math" or both, we do tend to be bookish types, and we bookish types do end up sometimes writing in public). I want to do a PIECE on CTY and other such programs at some point in the future, but for now, as my own thoughts are still gelling, I offer you some pieces on CTY from other sources.

CTY's wikipedia page (did you know that Lady Gaga is an alum?? Allegedly? I did not!): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Talented_Youth

CTY on the web in an official capacity: http://www.cty.jhu.edu/

CTY on slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2146134/

CTY in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/07/26/040726fa_fact_bilger (subscription required; or, go to smallcrumbs.blogspot.com: http://smallcrumbs.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-am-going-to-re-publish-something.html, though i caution that the formatting is wonky and annoying)

CTY to be made into film! based on that bilger piece: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/444894/Nerd-Camp-Universal-/overview

CTY in the urban dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CTY

CTY from the young RA's perspective, in real-time (at the time): http://nerd-camp.blogspot.com/