Admiring a photograph of an expert climber flashing a frosty smile and waving a tiny flag on the summit of Mount Everest is radically different from actual Himalayan mountaineering. Similarly, admiring a school or college website, replete with carefully curated student profiles and teacher bios, impressive admissions statistics, majestic buildings, and lush lawns is radically different from the daily grind of studying.

Since 1988, Gail Richmond has spent summers welcoming rising high school seniors to Michigan State University, where they devote seven weeks to conducting research while living on a college campus for the very first time. 

“Mason” was thrilled to start an elite engineering program within a large university during the fall of 2023. His college has struggled with containing COVID outbreaks on campus since spring 2020. Just last week, they made the decision to offer up to each professor their preference in finishing out the semester: continue offering in-person classes or switch to online instruction.

First-year students have settled in, and the fall semester will be over before students realize it. They are looking forward to celebrating the holidays, seeing friends, and avoiding homework. Parents are excited to welcome their students home and hear every detail about how the first semester has gone.  

What is your dream? Do you still have one? Are you living it? Have you thought about it recently? At a young age, kids are commonly asked questions about what they want to do when they grow up. And because they are young, most often times, they are encouraged and celebrated for those dreams no matter how imaginative they are. But what happens as kids get older?

Let’s take a moment to look at the core elements of what therapeutic IECs offer for families.