Teen gets mental workout at Stanford

In a word, the two weeks Connor Bloom spent at Stanford University were amazing.

The campus? Amazing.

The particle accelerator? Amazing.

The chance to meet like-minded kids from across the globe? You guessed it ...

“It was amazing being down there,” said Bloom, 14.

Bloom spent two weeks this summer at Stanford’s Education Program for Gifted Youth. The program offers courses in a variety of subjects geared toward students who want to challenge themselves.

Bloom, who loves science and problem solving, chose a physical science course.

“I like physics and I like math. I like figuring new things out,” said Bloom, who next month will be an eighth-grader at Whitefish Middle School.

His love of math and desire to take additional math classes led Bloom to the Stanford program, which offers online courses in addition to its summer program. Bloom signed up for an online math class and found out about the summer institute.

“I was really interested in that,” Bloom said.

Summer usually is a boring time, he said; he misses the chance to learn and interact with other students.

The institute seemed like a perfect place to meet other kids and learn some new, challenging material.

Bloom survived a lengthy application process that began in January.

He had to submit his grades from fifth grade on, supply his standardized test scores, write an essay and get recommendation letters from teachers. Once he had made it through two rounds of cutoff dates, Bloom had to wait a month to find out whether he had been accepted.

The suspense was rough, Bloom said. Diana Graham, a counselor at Muldown Elementary where Bloom’s mother, Lisa, teaches third grade, asked friends at Stanford about Bloom’s application every time she talked to them.

When Bloom finally found out he had been accepted, his mother began looking for ways to help pay for the trip. The institute alone costs more than $3,000; the family also had to come up with airfare.

Scholarships for middle school students are rare, Lisa Bloom said, but the Ritzman Foundation was willing to help.

Lisa Bloom flew to Palo Alto with her son and stayed one night so she could attend a barbecue and meet the instructors.

She admitted she was nervous for Connor, who had never been in a situation quite like that before.

“I knew he was going to be fine,” she said, but admitted that she still was a little hesitant to leave. “He did push me out the door,” she said, laughing.

By midweek, she knew without a doubt Connor was doing well.

“I knew he was having a great time. The first couple days he called every night, then we didn’t hear from him,” she said.

Bloom was having a great time. The summer institute provided just the mental stimulation he had been missing.

“The course was amazing. [We covered] so much material in so little time,” he said.

On the first day, the physical science students learned calculus. By Friday, they were touching a cadaver at the Stanford clinical laboratory.

In the second week, they saw the school’s particle accelerator — “amazing stuff,” Bloom said.

It was just the mental workout he’d been looking for.

“I had a headache because it was so complicated. I’ve been missing that,” he said.

About 20 of the 86 students present for the institute’s first session were in Bloom’s physical science course. Many were from California, but Bloom met others from China, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. As far as he knows, Bloom was the only student from Montana to attend.

The students at the institute became fast friends — which was useful throughout the course.

As someone to whom learning new concepts comes easily, the first few days of the complicated class were challenging, Bloom said.

But the students found that if they worked together, they could get through the material.

“Once we got to know each other, we helped each other out,” he said. “We learned a lot from each other, that’s for sure.”

They did more than just study for two weeks. The students held a talent show and a dance, and every day they had at least an hour of free time.

Bloom said he usually spent his free time with other musically inclined kids.

“So many people played piano. It was nice to meet other people who do that,” he said.

That, Lisa Bloom said, is why she was so keen on sending her son to the institute. She wanted him to have the opportunity to spend time with students who are interested in the same things he is and driven in the same way he is.

“To give him the experience of being with kids from other states, other countries, to be part of a larger group who share those same interests — that’s what I really heard in his voice,” she said.

“That’s why I wanted to let other kids know about this opportunity. As a teacher myself, I know lots of other kids could benefit from this.”

The Stanford program offers online courses and summer institutes for middle school and high school students.

Additional information is available at http://epgy.stanford.edu.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.