Around sixth grade, sophomore Zoe Rodriguez attended a science festival in downtown Fort Worth. As she walked around the convention, she interacted with booths where she worked with circuits and made a lava lamp. Once she finished testing with these booths, she sat in the audience of a convention for one of the most noted women in history, Sally Ride. Zoe listened as the first female astronaut talked about her love for her job. Ride said she was able to wake up every day to do something she loved.
Zoe decided that’s just what she wanted to do.
And she decided a few years later she could do that by going to TAMS.
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TAMS is the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at UNT. During her junior and senior years of high school, Zoe will be enrolled in TAMS, a program that will help her get experience for the job she wants. This two year course enables Zoe to complete her freshman and sophomore years of college, while counting as her junior and senior years of high school.
While in the program, Zoe will be taking regular college courses with college students at UNT, but she’ll be staying in dorms with other TAMS students. In this program, she will be treated as a regular college student, responsible for making her own decisions and expected to thrive on her own.
“It’s a little daunting,” Zoe said. “I mean I’m getting thrust into this adult world, but I feel like I’ll be able to learn about a lot from it with a lot of trial and error and hopefully get a head start in my career.”
By the time Zoe turns 18, she will already have two years of college under her belt and a head start into choosing her career.
TAMS courses are rigorous for regular high school students. The kids enrolled in TAMS are in the top 1 percent of their high school class with high SAT scores. This selective acceptance calls for the applicants to be diligent in their classes to make sure they’re the right pick for the school. Zoe’s brother, senior Alex Rodriguez has seen the drive his sister has for math and science. He thinks the school will be a good fit for her.
“I think my sister deserves it because she works really hard,” Alex Rodriguez said. “Every day, every night she’s studying. She’s really focused.”
When Zoe first got interested in TAMS, she was in eighth grade at a summer science and math program called SMI, Summer Mathematics Institute, sponsored by TAMS. During the month of July, Zoe was able to go to classes to help her advance in her math skills and learn more about what she wanted to do in her future.
During night times at SMI, Zoe and her friends would sit in the laundry room, eat snacks and talk about whatever came to their minds. One night, someone brought up TAMS and how it seemed interesting to attend. As they went around the room and asked each girl about going to the school, Zoe didn’t know whether or not she wanted this early college experience.
“It seemed really difficult and I’d have to give up a lot of my high school life,” Zoe said.
When it got to her turn to answer, she didn’t think she would go. It was a scary thing for her to think about starting in the adult world so early. But with the encouragement of her friends in the summer program, Zoe got interested and started applying for TAMS.
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Zoe found out she was accepted into the program during spring break. The biggest problem for her was being away from her parents, but because UNT is only twenty minutes away from them, she decided that the positives of the program outweighed the cons.
Being a 16 year old in a college environment is rare. While it’s helpful for her future, it also is nerve-wracking for her to be so young among many older students. While her brother Alex almost chose to go to UNT just to be there for Zoe, he decided OSU was a better pick for him. But he still is nervous for what can happen to her while she’s in college.
“I won’t be there to protect her, I don’t know how much I can really do,” Alex said. “I don’t want her to get too stressed.”
Although Zoe will be on her own, she’ll also have the other TAMS students to have a shoulder to cry on or a hand to help bring her up.
For Zoe, one of the main reasons she wants to attend TAMS is chemistry. She enjoys how it plays into every aspect of life and how people can learn so much from it. Her love for chemistry goes beyond the high school classroom.
“Life is short, so I want to know as much as I can about the world before I die,” Zoe said. “I feel like chemistry helps [to] be a catalyst to help learn more about life in general.”
Zoe will live on campus at UNT, but will be able to visit home on the weekends. This means that she will miss many of the high school experiences people have their junior and senior years. While Zoe won’t be able to attend high school prom, TAMS has the opportunity for a smaller prom with the students in the program.
She will also have to leave one of her favorite things about high school, choir, but she’s excited about the opportunities she’ll gain from this program.
“While I’ll miss a couple of high school experiences, I’ll make unique experiences of my own that not many people have been able to have,” Zoe said.
