Summer Scholar Profile: Emely

PEAK scholars are finding all sorts of ways to keep themselves busy this summer, from sports to art classes to coding to a pre-med program. We sat down with scholar Emely Martinez to hear about her experience at High Potentials Leadership Program at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana.

The High Potentials Leadership Program is a residential camp program on Saint Mary’s campus that helps girls entering their sophomore through senior year of high school develop their leadership capacity. Emely is now back in Chicago and running track with Holy Trinity over the summer, but thanks to the generous support of a PEAK donor, she was able to spend 6 days at Saint Mary’s for the program earlier this month.

In giving us some of her highlights, Emely described sitting down to write in her journal each day on prompts such as “what brings you joy” and “who are your people?” Another memorable experience was visiting a judge in her courtroom. “I learned that in order to be a judge you have to be taking the other person’s perspective,” Emily said, “you have to be in their shoes and think about it, in the situation. The courtroom was like how you see it in the movies!”

Emely was initially worried about making friends, since she didn’t know any other participants going into the program, but she is happy to report that everything turned out great. “We’re all keeping in touch,” says Emely. “We made a group chat. Some [participants] are from Pennsylvania, Nashville, Colorado, and Cleveland.” Emely says that after this program, St. Mary's is on her list of colleges to consider.

Congratulations to Emely and to all our PEAK scholars completing summer programs. We know you’ll make the most of everything you’re learning!