Aspen High Student Club Members attend the Aspen Institute’s Great Ideas Seminar

High School Clubs are the foundation of AIA’s work and support our mission by hosting fundraisers, organizing supply drives, and even volunteering in Uganda. Because of this, we felt it was important to support these young leaders in their development and awarded three scholarships to students from our Aspen High School Club to participate in Aspen Institute’s High School Great Ideas. The four-day seminar is dedicated to enhancing leadership, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.

Special thanks to Jillian Scott from The Aspen Institute for helping make this possible.

Here’s how it impacted them: 

“Participating in the Great Ideas Seminar at The Aspen Institute was an amazing opportunity! I gained so much perspective and learned how to push my thinking to a different level from hearing others' ideas. I was also able to make new connections with peers throughout the valley. I would highly recommend this program as I believe it helped me start to find my individuality within our community. Thank you so much for making this experience happen!”  - Gracen Rogers

“I wanted to express my gratitude for being given such a fantastic opportunity to attend the High School Great Ideas Seminar held by the Aspen Institute. The moderators were amazing, and the atmosphere was excellent. From the start, everybody was very comfortable and friendly towards one another, even though we were mostly strangers. Being in the seminar put me in a position to discuss a wide variety of subjects with people I would never have met otherwise. My perspective was challenged many times, and I listened to other people's points of view on all sorts of topics, from ignorance, power, responsibility, and individuality to the origins of identity and morality. By being able to hear out those with different backgrounds and stories, I further grasped what leadership genuinely means to me. This seminar gave me a chance to reflect on my life and the world around me, which I am incredibly grateful for. I would love to participate in a seminar like this again, and I highly recommend my peers participate.” - Brooke O’Sullivan

“While at the Aspen institute I learned how to converse with people. We talked about some hard subjects, and some people got very vulnerable. I think this seminar is very important. Especially for kids who want to meet new people or challenge their already existing opinions. My favorite part of this seminar was making new friends. I got to know 4 new people during the seminar. I would 100% go again, I think it was a great way to read up on very old but wise texts and it helped me for future readings regarding them. I would recommend for sure that others attend. Maybe not if you’re not a fan of reading. But if you are I think overall it was an amazing experience and I am so grateful to have been able to be a part of it.” - Stella Iverson