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Tyler Saunders, a high school student from Dover, was walking across the Austin Peay State University campus last summer when a poster advertising the upcoming Governor\u2019s School in Computational Physics caught his eye.<\/p>\nTyler Saunders, a high school student from Dover, was walking across the Austin Peay State University campus last summer when a poster advertising the upcoming Governor\u2019s School in Computational Physics caught his eye.<\/p>\n
The highly competitive program, which has been at APSU for three years, is geared toward hardworking high school sophomores and juniors with an interest in engineering, mathematics and science, and allows them to earn seven hours of college credit. The Governor\u2019s School in Computational Physics (GSCP) seeks only the best and brightest students in the state, and Saunders was intrigued by the poster he saw for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made me want to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cI honestly didn\u2019t know it had anything to do with computers and stuff. I was pleasantly surprised when I came in and found I would be learning all this cool stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n
On a hot afternoon in late May, Saunders returned to the APSU campus as one of only 38 students from across Tennessee to participate in the GSCP program. Immediately, he was handed a small, inexpensive netbook computer with his name and APSU engraved in a plate on the cover.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone got one,\u201d Dr. Jaime Taylor, dean of the APSU College of Science and Mathematics, said. \u201cThe netbooks dramatically change the way we teach. After class, the students can take them back to their room, do their homework.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saunders took his new netbook that afternoon and quickly found his way to his dorm room. He knew his way pretty well around campus. For the previous two summers, he was a student in APSU\u2019s Science and Math Academy \u2013 a free two-week summer program designed to sharpen the math and science skills of local high school students. It was an experience that prepared him to be one of the elite few students in Tennessee to attend the GSCP program at APSU.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>It (Science and Math Academy) was really strong in algebra, and that helped me in school and also helped me here with all the calculus I never even heard of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n