Have you ever wanted to take classes such as guitar, yoga, sign language, ballroom dance, or neuroscience during your school day? For students involved in the Gifted Program, classes such as these are made available by Allegheny College.

The Allegheny College Collaborative Program for Gifted students in grades 9 through 12 from PENNCREST, Conneaut, and Crawford Central school districts was created to allow students to participate in three different seminars of their choosing. Each seminar is uniquely designed to allow students to learn something they typically wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn about in high school.

“The collaborative between Allegheny and the local high schools has given me the opportunity to broaden my horizons and gain knowledge and experience in areas that wouldn’t be possible in a normal classroom setting” said Nicole Mauri, senior at MASH. Will McInally, senior at MASH, added “It was my neuroscience class at Allegheny that first sparked an interest in the brain, which led to me potentially majoring in psych or neuroscience.”

Some of the exclusive classes that students can pick from include: Theater Improvisation, Ballroom Dance, Guitar, Voice, Yoga and Movement,  Chinese Language and Culture, Creative Writing & Poetry, Neuroscience, and The Printing Press and Social Change: With or Without the Meadville Tribune.

A typical Allegheny Collaborative day lasts from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with two seminars in the morning and one in the afternoon. From 11:10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., the students eat lunch at McKinley’s food court on campus. “Lunch is always pretty excellent – we have the most fantastic theatre geek table made up of kids from a bunch of different schools, and every day, no matter what, I get pasta with marinara sauce,” said senior Sarah Bristow, senior at SHS. Overall, the Allegheny College Collaborative program has benefitted many students’ educational opportunities and definitely given them the chance to broaden their horizons.