When Owen Jamal first stepped into our studios, he was a curious student attending the NuVu Summer Program. Fast forward to last year, when he officially joined us as a full-time eighth grader and dove headfirst into our immersive design curriculum. This past summer, Owen’s journey came full circle as he stepped confidently into a new leadership role: Summer Program Intern.

Stepping into a coach's shoes brought immediate revelations. As Maddie, who directed the Middle School program, observed, our interns quickly discovered that guiding a studio is a high-intensity endeavor, and not quite as easy as it looks from a student's desk! It takes tremendous behind-the-scenes work and stamina to support middle school projects and keep young minds engaged. "It was very eye-opening to see it from the other side," Owen reflected. "Usually, I'm on the other side of it, but to see how it runs, like how much care and consideration goes into each student's project, and getting them across the line... It was just an overall very beautiful perspective to have gained."

The summer was packed with vibrant energy and unforgettable stories, perfectly encapsulated during a spirited team-building exercise where campers fiercely competed to build towering structures out of marshmallows. For Owen, the highlight was the environment's pure playfulness. "It was like the joy, the competition, and, you know, them also trying to be sneaky sometimes and trying to eat a marshmallow," he shared. Beyond the daily studio work, a rich social culture blossomed between the interns and the summer staff, creating a close-knit community where peers and educators supported one another through the intense summer schedule.

Owen thrived in this collaborative ecosystem, eagerly soaking up knowledge from a diverse roster of coaches whose real-world expertise spanned architecture, fashion, mechanical engineering, and beyond. "It's really cool because you get to learn a little bit about each field very easily because they're all from different backgrounds," he noted, highlighting how casually asking questions of an industrial design coach opened up entirely new fields of interest for him.

The true magic of Owen’s summer, however, was the win-win of peer mentorship. Having set a goal to improve his iterative design skills at the end of the last academic year, Owen found that guiding others cemented his own understanding. "Working with the students on that helped me and helped them," Owen explained. "Partially learning a little bit with them, but also being able to teach them what I learned last year and just keep growing in that area."

Now, as he returns to the high school, Owen brings an invaluable new perspective. "I actually think it's going to help a lot, because I know what it's like now to run a design studio," he said, pointing out that he now understands exactly "how you can be creative inside of the prompt."

We could not be more excited to launch another incredible year of our studio-based, full-time High School curriculum with Owen and the entire NuVu High School community.

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