May Project

A long-established tradition at UHigh, May Project enables seniors to research, develop, and carry out a significant project on their own with a minimum of supervision during the month of May. It is designed to be a "capstone" experience, one that calls on all the skills and maturity seniors have developed during their time at the Laboratory Schools. It also permits them to apply these skills outside the classroom. In many ways, May Project is also a bridge between the worlds of high school and college.

Students who want to participate in May Project must go through a rigorous process involving idea development, preliminary research, finding a sponsor and/or advisor, and writing a detailed proposal. A Readers' Committee composed of Lab Schools faculty and administrators reads and evaluates the proposals, providing feedback and final approval. Once a student is approved, he or she is able to use the month of May for the project, free from the need to attend class (with certain exceptions for AP courses and credit requirements). At the end of the month, students do a presentation and set up an exhibit for the entire school to demonstrate what they have learned. If a student is doing a May Project, its successful completion is required for graduation.

May Project can take one of several forms, which students can combine or alter as necessary. They are:

1. Asking and answering a significant question
2. Forming and testing a hypothesis
3. Creating a significant work or works of cultural expression
4. Preparing and performing a musical or dramatic piece
5. Investigating/participating in a possible career field
6. A combination of any of the above
7. Other

Over the years UHigh seniors have created May Projects that include working for political campaigns, documenting a Chicago neighborhood through photographs, researching and writing ethnic cookbooks, shadowing surgeons, interning at law firms and newspapers, and many others. During their projects, they meet with their advisors at least once a week and keep journals of their experience. Whatever the project, our concern is less with the product than with the process: "Success" is determined by whether the senior has fully immersed him or herself in the project and learned what needed to be learned, not by the final "product." Often, seniors whose projects have not turned out as they expected have learned as much as they might have otherwise. The process, in a sense, is the product.

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