A priceless week of STEAM exploration for Bao Quyen, Year 10 at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA!

“Being at MIT for a week, getting to eat and talk with students there, walking the corridors and being in lecture halls made the dream of studying one day at an institute like that feel much more possible.”
Sharing from Bao Quyen (BQ) Year 10 student

For Bao Quyen (or BQ), a Year 10 student at BVIS, the week-long trip to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was truly a memorable highlight of 2023 - all thanks to the collaboration between the Nord Anglia Education organisation and MIT. It stands out as one of the most fantastic experiences she has ever had!

“It completely changed the way I perceive things now. And there’s many other opportunities out there that everyone can participate in made possible because of Nord Anglia’s collaboration with MIT, be it Global Campus or activities within our STEAM lessons. I hope this little story encourages you all to research and really get into the world of STEAM!” shared BQ.

The trip consisted of 50 students from 31 different Nord Anglia schools from across the world. They all got selected for the event through a competition of designing and creating a model with the prompt “Hack the Tube”. The whole trip was spread out over the course of 5 days and we got to take part in various different activities which would all help in our final project for the end of the trip. We had talks and lectures from PhD students, researchers and MIT professors, and chances to visit different labs and workshops. 

“All the activities were incredibly exciting but a few that I found really interesting was our visit to a research lab focused on fruit flies' genetics, going to “Sea Grant” where we got to take a tour of the place and all the robots within, the AI museum and the talk from different robotics groups in MIT,” added by BQ.

Furthermore, we also toured the Harvard and the MIT campuses along with getting a duck boat tour of Boston. The whole week resulted in a project where we got to build our own TOY! The goal was to create something innovative, creative and sustainable that would be able to be mass produced. We utilised the skills we learned during the week such as 3D printing to be able to create our prototype. Throughout the week, there was a big emphasis on collaboration.

We were always put in groups to do activities and worked well together. This helped every group to have different points of view and have a range of different skills to tackle the situation. 

For me, I remember since I was young, I had always liked science and enjoyed STEAM when it was added to our school. So, getting the opportunity to be in an environment filled with so many people who share the same passion was just so enjoyable and fun. In addition, aside from the plethora of technical skills we picked up, I learned a lot about other people’s culture and school life. 

“It was great to get to interact with people from across the globe and become so close to so many of them.” BQ added.