exploration || our philosophy

Not everyone comes to EXPLO knowing where they will end up afterward.

Patricia Wenmei Hill started at EXPLO a month after graduating from MIT's School of Architecture, and for two of the next three summers, she returned to EXPLO while pursuing a master's degree at the University of Washington. All the while, her long-term career plans were in flux.

“After five years [of working as an architect], I decided that I wanted to work in a field that was more technical and fast-paced," she says. Today, Hill is a Business IT consultant based in Seattle, Wash., where she has worked with clients such as Accenture and Starbucks.

"Working at EXPLO helped me learn how to inspire and motivate people," Hill says. "I learned how to manage, how to earn respect, and how to communicate, all of which has served me well in my professional career. The environment was so supportive and creative — for both staff and students — that it helped me to see how great people can be when given the opportunity to explore and shine."

Explo is great practice for working hard. It's also a great place to practice loving the work you do.

"If you want to work hard and love what you do, this is the place to be," says Avi Schwab, a webmaster for the University of Chicago. While at EXPLO at Wellesley from 2001 to 2003, Schwab served as the webmaster/photojournalist for the EXPLO summer website.

"First off, I learned a huge amount about photography, composition, and web development, almost all of which I still use in regular practice today," Schwab says. "On top of that, I think the most important experience I gained was that of having to manage so many different tasks at once. The six non-stop weeks force you to find a good groove quickly and roll with it — a skill that translates perfectly to careers outside."

"EXPLO was incredibly inspiring," Hebert says. "I felt so much support from the students and fellow faculty members that I was able to be successful as a teacher. EXPLO definitely affirmed my belief that I wanted to become an educator."

A graduate of the University of Mississippi's master's teaching program, Hebert says that encouragement and teamwork are things he took from EXPLO and tries to instill as a teacher and cross country coach at Bedford (Mass.) High School.

"I employ the teaching and coaching strategy 'Work hard, be positive'," says Hebert. "I believe the same motto could describe my experiences at EXPLO. EXPLO's zero tolerance on bullying policy meant a lot to me professionally, and is something I implement in every class I teach and team I coach to this day."

Our faculty go on to do great things after their summers at EXPLO. Here's what some of our former faculty have said about how their EXPLO experience helped them in their future careers:

"I would not be a successful attorney if not for my experiences working at EXPLO for six summers," says Julie Rusczek, a lawyer with Drinker, Biddle & Reath, a firm in Milwaukee, Wisc. "EXPLO is where I learned to be an adult and a professional."

Rusczek started at EXPLO at St. Mark's in 1996, after her freshman year at Williams College. An English and biology double major, she worked at EXPLO every summer while she was in college, as well as in the summer after her first year of law school at the University of Michigan.

"I have never worked in another environment like EXPLO," she says. "It was the experience of a lifetime. There aren’t many organizations out there like this, where you're surrounded by such talented, motivated, friendly, hard-working, fabulous people, all working together to achieve great things.”

There's one every year. The faculty member who comes to EXPLO on one career path and leaves headed toward something completely new six weeks later.

For Tung Trinh, it didn't even take that long. A Government and Legal Studies major at Bowdoin College, Trinh was thinking ahead to law school when he arrived on the EXPLO campus in the summer of 2003.

"I knew this would be my last chance to work with kids before getting a real job after graduation," Trinh says. "But once I was on campus, I knew that I was hooked. I loved the atmosphere, and I loved the work."

Today, Trinh is a teacher and the Social Studies Department Chair at Shore Country Day School in Beverly, Mass. At Shore, he has founded the boys JV basketball team and girls softball team, as well as the school's used book sale. In 2007, he was named teacher of the year.

Asked what he feels he gained from his time at EXPLO, Trinh says, "Is it too much to say everything? From the nuts and bolts of lesson planning to fostering a child's curiosity, EXPLO gave me the confidence and the skills to teach."

You probably couldn't dream up a more impressive resume than Millicent Odunze's, even if you tried. Student body president in high school. Degrees from Harvard, Duke, and Chapel Hill. Missionary trips to Ethiopia. And today, she is a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles.

And yet amongst all of these experiences, Odonze says that nothing else was quite like working at EXPLO for four summers.

"I have never in my life been surrounded by such dynamic, open-minded people with an ideal to change the world," she says.

From the age of seven, Odunze says she has known that she wanted to be a doctor, but being a faculty member at Exploration forever altered her sense of the ideal place to work and the kind of people she wanted to work with.

"Since EXPLO, I've always wanted to work in environments that will not only challenge me, but that are filled with people who are inspiring, who are motivated and who will change the world," she says. "I would not trade my experience of those four summers for anything."

Claire Avitable thought she might like to work with high school-aged students in her professional career. Then she taught at EXPLO at Yale and had her suspicion confirmed.

"I had a hunch about this, but after working at EXPLO, I knew that I was meant to work with teenagers for the rest of my life," Avitable says.

Today, Avitable is the Director of Performing Arts for the Sabes Jewish Community Center in Minneapolis, Minn., as well as the founder of the city's 20% Theater Company. A Theater major while at Smith College, Avitable says working at Explo was "a dream job come true" and that her experience over four summers at the Program proved to be a turning point in her career path.

"I don't think I would have known I would love teaching theater so much had I not worked at EXPLO first," she says. "It confirmed what I'm supposed to do with my life, and that working with youth is, indeed, a passion of mine. EXPLO was, to this day, one of the best jobs I've ever had, and I miss it dearly."

Exploration Summer Programs is operated by Exploration School, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)3 educational organization.