It's almost spring break! We hope that all of our ATYP students will be taking some time to relax and decompress after what has been a long tough winter.

We know that many of you are feeling the stress of having a lot to do and not feeling like you have enough time to do it in - which makes it difficult to appreciate what you learn from ATYP while you're in the middle of it. We recently received a letter from Spencer Lenfield, ATYP alum, Harvard grad, and current Rhodes Scholar. Spencer writes,


"Having a lot of untrained brainpower can be indescribably isolating. And isolation, unfortunately, can cool and warp the heat of even the brightest stars. The reason why programs like ATYP are so essential for smart middle- and high-school students is that the most nourishing thing for young intellect to have is a connection to what Matthew Arnold once called “the best which has been thought and said”—the sense that someone else out there, decades, centuries, or millennia ago, has thought, felt, and worried about the very same things that you yourself have known. And even in this age of Wikipedia, the best way to do that is to have a good teacher to show you to the novel, poem, theorem, or article with which your heart beats in time. We tend to think that the very bright will tend to themselves. But we forget that no fire burns for long without someone to add the right fuel."

So maybe take a moment this break to say thanks to your teachers for all they do - and then go back to your relaxing!