My name is Kaysha Bennett and I am a part of the fourth class of Torch Scholars. When I received the call telling me that I had made it through all of the interviews and was accepted to Northeastern University, I was very excited. My mom was in the living room
yelling “thank you Jesus” as I jumped up and down on the phone.
Once accepted I had to get ready for the Summer Immersion Program. My family and I drove from Rochester, NY to Boston, MA in a car full of papers, school supplies and dorm room necessities. I had packed everything that I owned and brought it all with me to college. Moving in to Speare Hall, there were so many new faces that I had never seen before, and cameras that were going off all day. We ate a barbecued meal, introduced ourselves, and met directors, deans and older Torch Scholars. The day was very long; I said goodbye to my family and was now on my own, or so I thought. That night we were all taken into the room of our Torch “mom” (she’s was really a rising sophomore and a part of the T3 class), and that is where we all came together as a class and got to know each other better. From then on her room became the place to be whenever we didn’t have homework to do (that was seldom). Oh Yeah, we took three classes over the summer to get us prepared for college, it was not all fun and games. We had homework every night and a quiz every week along with papers and tests. Everyone complained all summer about the work, but now we are singing a different tune. It really did help us get adjusted to the college life so once we were officially college students we did not struggle like we did in the beginning of the summer. Thinking about our summer makes me realize how much fun we had together as a class and how close we all grew to each other. Now that we are all freshmen in college we have separated out into our majors, clubs and different social activities, but when we all get together it is just like the summer all over again. And that is why I am glad to be a Torch scholar.
