Texas Border Business
PHARR – More than 30 Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD (PSJA) students recently visited some of our nation’s top Ivy League schools as part of the PSJA & Texas Graduate Center Summer Ivy League University Tours 2016. The students got to visit seven universities including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brown University.
The partnership between the school district and the Texas Graduate Center (TGC), provides current PSJA sophomore and junior students the opportunity to explore universities they would have overlooked when considering institutions for their post-secondary education. In addition to Harvard, MIT and Brown, the second and third tours took students to Washington University St. Louis Missouri, Yale University, Princeton University and Columbia University.
The Student University Tours are exclusive to MATHTEACH Collaborative partners who support a math teacher in their Math for Teaching Graduate Program in partnership with Harvard University. Two PSJA teachers recently graduated with their master’s from the program and another two are currently participating.
For Antonio Martinez, a sophomore at PSJA Southwest Early College High School who participated in the tour to Washington University-St. Louis, traveling out of Texas and visiting those campuses was a life changing experience.
“The experience was amazing. I want to thank everyone who made it possible,” expressed Martinez. “An opportunity like this makes a positive impact on us and I hope that these tours continue being offered so students from the Rio Grande Valley can become inspired to achieve the impossible.
