CORNING, N.Y. (WETM) – The Full STEAHM ahead summer workshop will be taking place in a few weeks at SUNY Corning Community College.

The program is one week long with two different sessions available. The workshop is aimed at middle school girls from our area focusing on science, technology, engineering, art, health and math.

“Our goal is to give them a well rounded experience,” said program director Jennifer Sellers. “All of the research that we did ahead of time when we were developing the program suggests that interest develops quite young, so we’re hoping to get them to love everything.”

There will be two sessions, July 17-21, 2023 and July 31- August 4, 2023, 8:30am-4:00pm. Students completing 4th or 5th grade or entering 4th or 5th grade from Steuben, Schuyler, or Chemung counties are eligible to apply. They are hoping to host around 60 girls this Summer.

“We started with a pilot program, which was just a small group of girls for three days,” Summers said. “Now we’ve expanded it to offer it for a whole week.”

The program fee is $100, which includes daily lunches, but there are plenty of scholarships available.

“We have funding from a lot of area nonprofits, such as the Triangle Fund, and the Elmira Corning Association for University Women,” Sellers explained. “We have around 20 scholarships just this year.”

Sellers also expressed how much education has changed over the year. She says, what you want to pursue in college really means starting to plan as early as junior high school.

“I know that I had the luxury of not having to declare a major in college until  the end of the first year. Whereas now you’ve got to know ahead of time.”

This program is designed to increase STEM confidence by showing students the connections between fields and giving them positive women role models. During a week on the campus of Corning Community College, girls will attend workshops on STEAHM participate in a career panel featuring women in a variety of STEAHM fields, and experience college life with campus tours, cafeteria dining, and a student information panel.

If you would like to apply, you can do so here.