Coaches Jon and Charlie Visit Emerson College with Redshirt Tom

This year in Project Coach, there has been a focus on goal setting. Every two weeks, our high school Blue Shirts submit S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-specific) goals to their Red Shirts. The process of talking about, writing down, and then submitting the goals to someone else significantly increases the likelihood of success in completing them. Coupled with a bevy of other support systems in place, our high school blue shirts have already achieved tremendous feats – from bringing a failing course grade to a B+ in a two-week span, to getting an A- on a challenging Chinese exam. These goals are working towards a greater goal that goes beyond success in their high school classrooms. For most of our Blue Shirts, the ultimate goal is to attend college. All of the smaller goals that they set along the way are steering them in that direction, though it can be easy to lose sight of what the long-term goal looks like in the moment.

This past Saturday, two of the Blue Shirts took the opportunity to see this long-term goal close-up in a trip to Emerson College for its admissions open house. Coach Charlie and Coach Jon got a taste of what it is like to go to college at Emerson. They sat in on panels of students discussing their paths to college, got overviews of specific visual-media arts curricula from department chairs, met with athletic coaches, and toured the dormitories across campus. All along the way, Jon and Charlie had the powerful experience of coming face-to-face with their end goal and meeting people at an institution that could help them to get there.