Meet the Summer Program Prefects: Gabrielle Margand (’24)

The Summer Blog will now take a quick break from our reporting about the ongoing California program to look ahead to the New England Summer Program — which begins on July 24, and for which a few spots are still available! Specifically, we will resume our series profiling the program’s prefects, starting with Gabrielle Margand (’24).

Gabrielle first encountered Catholic liberal education at the 2019 New England Summer Program and found herself wrestling with its implications. “I loved being surrounded by students with an avid intellectual curiosity who were all interested in serious discussion about the nature of man, his destiny, and his relationship with God,” she reflects. “The Summer Program was the first time I had ever heard of approaching education for its own sake, studying the great minds for the purpose of discovering truth and with the intent of cultivating the whole person.”

Intriguing as this approach was, Gabrielle was still on the fence. “It was so different from the view I was used to, and I was not entirely convinced of its plausibility,” she adds. “In high school I become very interested in nursing, and I did not think a liberal arts degree was practical for working toward a nursing degree.”

But fascination with the College ultimately outweighed her practical objections. Gabrielle gave the education a chance, and quickly realized she had made the right decision. “I developed a love for this wonderful community, from which I have formed some of my closest friendships, as well as the collegiate and spiritual environment, which has encouraged my intellectual curiosity, cultivated my appreciation for truth, and helped me grow in my faith,” she says. She was thus able to confront her professional misgivings with equanimity. “I met various alumni who had become nurses after graduating,” she remembers. “They were very helpful in explaining how their TAC background had greatly enhanced their work in the nursing world.”

It was settled: She would stay.

Gabrielle’s own creative wrestling with the implications of the Summer Program landed her among the prefects for the 2021 program, and she is excited for the chance to reprise the role of friend and mentor this summer. “I love helping students who are encountering our challenging math program for the first time,” she says. “I remember how daunting Euclid looked when I was first introduced to it. Students are expected to explain the ‘why’ behind the demonstrations they present in the classroom, while answering questions from their classmates. I was definitely nervous when I learned that, but there was so much help from my prefects, and my classmates were so amicable, that it was easy to become confident. That helped me better appreciate this different approach to mathematics, which I have found effects a deeper understanding and is highly rewarding.”