Every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving, thousands of high school students from across the country flock to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take part in a program called Splash.

Splash is an event coordinated by the MIT Educational Studies Program, during which high schoolers spend their weekend taking a wide array of short classes on the MIT campus. The classes are taught by people at MIT, typically both students and alumni. High school students pay $40 to attend the program, although they may apply for financial aid.

Splash classes are selected through an online lottery system. The enormous number of students who attend Splash makes it unlikely for students to get all of their first-choice classes, but there are hundreds of extremely interesting courses to choose from.

Each class is quite short, with most lasting only one or two hours; this gives students the opportunity to explore as many new subjects as possible. On Saturday, Splash runs from 10 a.m.-9 p.m., with breaks for lunch and dinner. On Sunday, Splash begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m., giving students time to return home and rest before they go to school the next day.

The courses at Splash are unique and fascinating, spanning virtually all subject areas and levels of difficulty. In 2015, the classes offered included "Lattices in Cryptography," "Point-Set Topology," "Dream Interpretation," "It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing: Swing Dance 101," "The Math of Basketball Strategy," "Advanced Random Awesome Maths," "Much Ado About Shakespeare," and "Concurrency and Multithreaded Programming," to name a few.

Students at Splash get the chance to explore their interests in the humanities, STEM fields and hobbies all in the same day. In addition to lecture-based classes, walk-in activities are also held in the lobby throughout the day. Students can spontaneously decide to participate in walk-ins, such as knitting, sewing or building enormous paper structures.

Many students from the Academy for Science and Design in Nashua attended Splash in 2015. They stepped out of their comfort zones and took classes on topics they had never even heard of before, sparking new interests and broadening their horizons.

When asked later on what their favorite classes were, the attendees had difficulty deciding. Ben Nichols-Farquhar, a junior at ASD, finally settled on "Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness." Another junior, Fiona Doyle, stated that her favorite class was "Zero-Knowledge Proofs."

"It was amazing to see the things you could prove without assuming any prior information," Doyle said.

Spencer Smith, also a junior at ASD, was full of enthusiasm as he described his time at Splash.

"Splash was a great experience for me; it’s a really unique opportunity to learn about things that aren’t really taught in high school. I was able to learn about some really advanced stuff that was really above my level, but I now have my sights set on understanding it one day."

At ASD, students and staff are characterized by a collective love of learning. Consequently, ASD has created its own event modeled after Splash, called the Symposium Promoting the Advancement of Real World Knowledge.

SPARK days are held several times a year and serve as an enrichment experience for students; they take place on selected Wednesdays and replace regular classes. Each ASD student takes four workshop-style classes during the day. Most of the classes are taught by teachers or volunteers, but high school students may teach their sessions at SPARK, just as MIT students do at Splash.

The most recent SPARK day at ASD was held on Wednesday, Dec. 16. Courses the student could pick from included "Chromatography Holiday Cards," "Sculpting Your Word Memory," "Stained Glass and Geometry," "Transforming Business with Information Technology," and "Hour of Code."

Each class is designed to challenge participants while helping them to discover unforeseen areas of interest and learn valuable skills. In general, Splash-style events are a wonderful way for students to try new things, gain practical knowledge and have a great time.

Brin Harper is a junior at the Academy for Science and Design in Nashua.