Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The second of two one-week Mississippi State programs to enhance the educational experiences of some state high school seniors is under way on campus.
Led by the university's College of Business and Industry faculty, the program is known as BOSS Camp. BOSS is an acronym for Building Opportunities to Succeed in School.
Camp director Paul Grimes said the program has been supported for the last four years with federal funding provided through GearUp Mississippi, a unit of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning. Increasing the number of university students from low-income school districts is among GearUp's missions, the finance and economics department head explained.
"The camp's primary goal is to introduce students from throughout Mississippi to campus life and the personal skills and habits that will result in positive college experiences, whichever school they might attend, and productive lifelong careers," Grimes said.
The 15 participants this week, like the 18 who came last week, are joining MSU student mentors in attending various summer school courses. They also are meeting with faculty advisers about potential career options and completing a leadership- and teamwork-building course at Camp Seminole, the Boy Scouts facility in northern Oktibbeha County.
"Though individual participants may vary from year to year, BOSS Camp has worked with Class of 2008 members since they were freshmen," Grimes said. "Since this is their decision year about whether to seek a higher education, we are concentrating this summer on preparing them to deal with the admissions and financial aid processes.
"Not only are they getting practice in completing paperwork for scholarships and student loans, they are receiving instruction and advice on how to craft and construct an effective admissions essay," Grimes said.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. Meghan Millea at 325-7476 or mmillea@cobilan.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.