The Office of Special Programs - College Prep provides more than just tutoring and help navigating the college enrollment and completion process. We help create connections between students and their future careers by providing them with the resources to engage with professors and participate in their research. Ryan Wong is one example of how the Office of Special Programs helps students acccess unique learning experiences and expand their academic perspectives.
This past summer, 11th grader Ryan Wong interned at the University of Chicago Center for Data and Applied Computing (CDAC). During his internship, he was part of a team of mentor Ph.D. students and helped with their project under Globus Labs, a lab that handles data transfers for many other labs across the country.
Collaborating with mentors at the Argonne National Laboratory, Ryan participated in writing a paper that makes large amounts of data more digestible for members of the scientific community. Their paper will be presented at the International Middleware Conference being hosted at the University of California, Davis in December 2019.
Ryan and his mother believe these experiences have helped Ryan improve his problem-solving skills, ability to work independently, and helped him become a self-starter. Ryan’s mother is confident that “his participation in the Office of Special Programs and the UCSI activities have widened Ryan’s perspectives and keeps him on his toes. The Office of Special Programs staff is very passionate. They’re very dedicated and it shows.”
