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The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, or IMSA, is a three-year residential high school, which accepts about 230 students every year into the incoming sophomore class. With its relatively small and highly motivated student body, comprised of about 650 students, IMSA has the power to teach like no other school can.
The idea for the school was originally proposed in 1982 by Dr. Leon Lederman, director emeritus of the Fermi National Laboratory. It was established in 1985, and opened in 1986. Throughout the last 21 years, IMSA has graduated over 4000 gifted students who have seen an ever-changing school, from the institution of in-room internet, to no less than three complete redesigns of the science curriculum. However, through all these changes, IMSA's mission has remained the same: to provide better educational opportunities to gifted minds in the fields of mathematics, science, and technology.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I go to a "nerd school". In two weeks, I will be a junior in his second year at IMSA. It is definitely a unique experience, and I am sure that anyone who has ever attended the school for more than a week will remember it for the rest of their life.
The academics at IMSA, relative to other schools, are simply outstanding. Much of the curriculum is structured around Problem-Based Learning; taking a problem and learning the concepts while trying to solve that problem rather than learning only the bare-bones concepts abstractly. In addition, most classes take the approach that the student should inquire about the world around him or her and figure things out on his or her own or by collaborating with peers rather than having to be lectured to by the teacher. The majority of classrooms use tables rather than desks. It doesn't stop at just math and science classes, either. IMSA's history department is one of the best I have seen. Foreign languages are taught in an immersion environment; English is not spoken in those classes.
The workload is quite large, and yet students still find the time to participate in clubs and sports. Clubs include everything from Robotics Club and Math Club to the European Cultures Club and Mod 21, an A capella group. Clubs can be chartered by students, as long as they have an adult sponsor. IMSA also has teams for every sport one might find at a normal high school except for football and wrestling.
Without going there for a substantial amount of time, it is hard to grasp everything about IMSA, and even harder to describe it in an article. Even after going there for a year, I still find myself learning new things about the school and life there. Reading over this article, I keep thinking of more things I would like to add, but there are just too many.
So this is my explanation to the Newsvine of where I have been for the past year, as I started shortly after it opened to the public and quickly became extremely involved. During the year, one must sadly drop a few things, such as Newsvine or being deeply involved in Wikipedia, if one wants to both do well academically as well as actually interact with others socially. However, I find it unfortunate that many at IMSA, and many other residential schools and colleges, choose to enclose themselves within what we call the "IMSA bubble" and hear nothing of the outside world. Therefore, I will try to stay up on Newsvine in the future.
Visit IMSA's website and the Wikipedia Entry.
