September 2026

I have been thinking a lot lately about the recipe for deep and lasting learning, the type of learning that actually changes, resets, or grows something permanent within you. It should come as no surprise that this is top of mind for me as I settle into my role as president of SYA — a program beloved by its alums for its lasting and profound impact. In my early months on the job, I have chatted with alums from SYA’s first class and SYA’s most recent class, with alums from across the U.S. and with careers that have spanned the globe. Each conversation reveals a story of the enduring effect of the SYA experience on each alum’s mindsets, values, and decisions across their lifetime. Have you ever wondered how one experience in the teen years could be so influential?

I turned to research on the neuroscience of learning, interested in probing my more metaphorical statement that “SYA changes something within its students.” I was at first thinking of the more intangible things like skills and habits of mind — the characteristic empathy, curiosity, humility, bravery, and independence we see develop in SYA students. But it turns out the change is quite tangible, actually it’s biochemical and physiological! The research shows that immersive, experiential learning drives the release of chemicals in the body that promote attention and motivation, and that real-world problem-solving activates and coordinates more areas of the brain, creating and strengthening the neural pathways that lead to long-term retention. In other words, the ways in which our SYA students learn while abroad leads to learning that literally changes their brains and lasts a lifetime.

The research made me wonder whether the question we should be asking about education is not simply, “What do students learn?” but “How deeply do they learn it?” If the goal of education is to create lasting change in what students know, how they think, and who they become, then the conditions in which learning happens matter enormously.

Educational institutions are asking themselves what we might lose as we allow the powerful tools of AI to come into the curriculum. Much of the conversation has focused on fears about academic integrity and gaps in training for critical thinking. But I think the bigger fear is that learning won’t be as deep or as lasting. While there is still much for us to learn in this arena, what I do believe is that the gains of an SYA experience can’t be underestimated — deep immersion in a new culture, a new language, a new community, a new country, and a new family. SYA continues to provide the kind of real-world learning that is irreducibly important, enduring and profound.