Hi, My name is Daniil, and I am going to 9th grade at St. Stephens Episcopal School.
I found out about Breakthrough from a meeting in my school where they introduced me to the program. I decided to apply to Breakthrough, because I want to get into a good high school and college. And, I thought Breakthrough would help me with that! My mom actually got an email about Breakthrough and signed me up for that meeting in my school. Now, I’m going to be the first in my family to go to college!
When I first joined Breakthrough, it felt a little boring, because I didn’t know a lot of people and at first it just felt like school. However, later I started making a lot of friends and it became way more fun than I expected. I think my Teaching Fellows are very positive and just cool people, same with my teammates. The main subjects I am learning in the Breakthrough Middle School Summer Academy are Algebra, Science, ELA, and Social Studies. In Algebra, so far, we have been learning about data tables and scatter plots. In science, we learned about things like the water cycle. In ELA, we’re learning about different feelings and how it can be shown in writing, like nostalgia. While in social studies we’ve been learning about fast fashion and Africa colonization. The classes are very chill and not at a high pace and there are a lot of class discussions. The class goes pretty slow giving you plenty of time to understand the topic, plus you’re always able to ask your teachers some questions, which makes it a bit easier to learn than traditional schools.
My goal for next year is that I want to get used to my new school, finish with good grades and get into the soccer team. Since my new school is a boarding school, I think Breakthrough can help me adapt to this new environment and help me look after my grades while I’m trying to figure everything out.
If I had to describe Breakthrough to someone else: It’s a program that helps you with your personal learning and achieving your academic goals, while having some things on the way to make the journey fun.
My Breakthrough experience differs from my school experience. Even though things like the summer program have learning, it isn’t heavy learning like school, but instead it’s just light learning that helps you not forget all you learned in school during summer. My favorite Breakthrough memory is Breakthrough Gets Fit where we would go to the field and I played soccer.
If I could thank someone, I would thank all the directors, especially Ms. Miryam for checking up on my academic progress in school and just having meetings with me to help with things like choosing my next school. Also, I want to thank all my Teaching Fellows for making my summer fun and just being great people. And, of course, all my friends for making this whole journey more fun. I definitely want to thank my parents for taking me to Breakthrough and helping me with decisions like my next school, and my mom for finding Breakthrough.
Even though right now I am unsure of what I want to do in the future, I know I can rely on Breakthrough to help me figure it out.
