Max Ingersoll is the youngest of three siblings who all attended NuVu Innovation School, and a true affirmation to NuVu’s mission and pedagogy. After a NuVu summer program experience in 2014, Max says he and his family knew this was a place for each of them to thrive in unique ways.

“I think a big part of the attraction to NuVu was the collaborative nature, as well as the project based format,” Max recalls. “I have always loved to learn but had become a bit disengaged at school at the time, and I think my parents knew it was time for a different option.”

The immediate differences that Max recalls were around possibilities. “I remember feeling excited about the amount of possibilities and variation in what we were doing. And also a form of healthy accountability through the presentations we had to give.” He explains that having to stand up in front of his peers and coaches to explain the work he was creating gave him a sense of excitement and pride. “When I think about a traditional school, most of the time you get a test, or you write a paper and you get a grade. But it doesn't really feel empowering in the same sense as those NuVu presentations.”

“NuVu had a really big impact on my understanding of what learning is and also what's possible in the world,” says Max, who went on to graduate from Harvard University with a major in sociology. Having transitioned between Cambridge Rindge and Latin and NuVu throughout his high school years, Max says he took note of the way traditional schools are divided into different disciplines with distinct areas that sometimes enforced the concept of boundaries in learning.

“I think being at NuVu, where everything was project based — I worked on over 40 projects over the three years that I was here— and all in a very wide array of fields,” recalls Max. “I think the accessibility of those fields that I felt, in part due to the great instruction from those who were actually practicing in those fields, that was a really amazing aspect of it too.”

The biggest takeaway, says Max, is the skill of collaboration that he honed while at NuVu. “I think the development of a collaborative framework and collaboration skills gave me the confidence that I can learn things, and was the most powerful aspect of my experience at NuVu,” he admits. “Having the opportunity to work with all sorts of different people, different personalities, and having to negotiate those roles and those dynamics every time in a collaborative way was incredibly impactful for me. I found this was super unique to NuVu and was not something I found in any other educational environment. I am most grateful for that deep learning, and have utilized it throughout my time at college and beyond.”

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