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New Perspectives - Feb,
1994 Issue #26
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DYNAMY
Megan Hollis, Director of Admissions
Worcester, MA.
508-755-2571
The Dynamy Year for 40 students 17-22 years of age, is a mixture of work/internships,
apartment living, structure, and coaching. Even more specifically, the year includes the possibility of some academic credit, wilderness
trips, and community involvement.
Dynamy is a time, as they say, "to jump off the academic treadmill and get involved in the
world" to some extent. Dynamy comes from Greek words meaning power and to be able. The objective is to explore one's self-confidence,
career direction and independence and realize more fully one's direction.
The year starts off with NORTH COUNTRY, a three week Hurricane Island Outward
Bound course in the mountains and on the lakes of central Maine -- backpacking, canoeing, rock climbing and camping. A time for
initial friendship and confidence building.
The INTERNSHIP PHASE offers considerable learning opportunities but not in the traditional
sense of classrooms, blackboards and desks lined up in a row. A "classroom" at Dynamy might be more like a day at a Worcester investment
banking office, a rape crisis center, a police department, a theater, an Audubon sanctuary, or a radio station. Three or four internships
can be chosen from a selection of 200. Each internship lasts two or three months with each week ranging from 30 to 35 hours. Dynamy
staff act as coaches, and on the job will be a sponsor or mentor.
Classrooms at Dynamy extend all over the city of Worcester and its population of 170,000.
Students have contributed to Worcester by helping with food drives, pitching in with recycling, working with the elderly, and coaching
school kids. A dynamy student may enroll in classes at one of the eight colleges in Worcester and attend various cultural and musical
events in the city.
Students may enroll at Dynamy right after high school or after a year or two in college.
After their year in Worcester, most have a better idea of what they want and are eager to get to or back to college.
Dynamy's admissions office can answer questions about their demonstrated commitment to providing
financial aid when needed.
As one student was quoted, "Dynamy offered me the opportunity to live and work in a setting
free of the traditional academic pressures.... Dynamy is a great way to learn about life while doing it, as opposed to reading about
it."
Copyright © 1994, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
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