Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, which marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.




	For a good portion of my life, I was introverted to a fault. I wasn’t comfortable with new experiences or people, and had trouble making new friends and finding new interests. As a kid, instead of finding new books to read I would reread the same ones out of fear of hating a new one. This stayed with me for most of my adolescence. The first thing I did to curb this was the ACE mentoring program.
	ACE is a national program that helps high school contacts learn about and experience various professions. During 10th grade I participated in the Hartford Architecture ACE Program as a way to learn about architecture. For t hours every other Thursday, I went to JCJ Architecture in Hartford, CT and worked with professional architects and five other students to learn about the vast world of architecture. The final project was to create a building and present it to two other related ACE groups and a board of parents and peers. Here I found a skill of mine: public speaking.
	The presentation was set up so that each of us had two slides. I had one slide talking about a game we played to learn about architectural RFI’s and it contained the best joke in the presentation, as well as the conclusion. During the presentation, I got a big laugh and triggered the final applause for our presentation. I was told that I was hilarious and a very good speaker. This was the first time I felt comfortable around strangers.
	Keeping this experience in my mind, in March of my sophomore year I was offered the opportunity to participate in EXPLO at Yale. EXPLO is a program that allows high school students to spend three weeks of their summer living on Yale campus and take classes about various subjects at Yale facilities. I jumped at this opportunity because it seemed like something I would like: why not go to Yale and learn at one of the most accredited colleges ever? It seemed like it would be fun and useful. So, I signed up and was ready to spend most of July on old campus at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
	This surprised my parents. My mom showed the program to me almost half-jokingly, thinking it was something I would never in a million years do. My response shocked her, but she was eager to get me to go. When I arrived with my parents on opening day, the first thing that struck me was the sheer amount of people there. There were a little less than five hundred students total, plus fifty or so instructors and volunteers. At this, I realized what I had signed up for: three weeks in the sweltering July heat miles away from home and anyone I knew with a bunch of strangers.
	I wasn’t ready for this broad of a social situation, and I froze up. When my parents left, I was sitting depressed in a corner waiting for everything to start so I could go to bed. I met my living group, a group of about 25 students I lived near in a dorm. With this, we had two RA’s, who guided us through the process of beginning EXPLO. My saving grace was that I had a solitary room. It was tiny, cramped, and like everything that summer incredibly hot because of the lack of air conditioning, but it was my home for the next few weeks.
	But, slowly, I warmed up while dodging the heat. Luckily, I had brought a fan that fit in my room, so I could reliable go somewhere comfortable and warm. While I wasn’t usually happy or excited, I managed to find good times in the experience. I became friends with Booth, who over our half-mile walks at 8:30 to our first class would tell me about his trade school and his license to set up a ladder in your place of business. I went and saw The Amazing Spider-Man on the first day of release in 3D. I watched the Quidditch crowd walk by with their strange hoops and useless broomsticks. I took 3D modeling and created some interesting efficiently-modeled doodles. I took Physics and helped make a Rube Goldberg machine that completely fell apart during its maiden voyage. I went to Lake Compounce and passed out on a bench because of the ridiculous heat, but not before riding Boulder Dash front row.
	So, when I returned home after my three weeks at Yale, I returned with many musings. I had survived what was essentially going off to college for the first time two years early, and knew what to expect in the future. I was able to make new friends and have a good time with people I didn’t know, a first for my life. I was able to honestly recommend the EXPLO program to people asking about it, if they could afford the cost. By exiting my comfort zone and going to Yale, I was able to become a confident, diligent, and friendly adult