Article: Imagine Magazine Revisited

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Imagine Magazine Revisited

by Jennifer Dees

"Big ideas for bright minds" is the tag line of Imagine magazine, published by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth (CTY). I love its "big" ambition, and with each issue this wonderful magazine for advanced middle and high school students seems to get "bigger," expanding its vision still further.

I wrote about Imagine in my blog a year and a half ago, but since then it has improved still more. It's been redesigned and is much more accessible and inviting. Besides the look, the content just keeps getting better.

Imagine has a different theme each issue (examples: Storytelling, Paleontology, Art and Science of Sound). Each contains lots of first-person articles relevant to the theme, from high school students, college students, and young adults who have done projects or who have careers in the field being featured.

This latest issue is called "Invention into Action." CTY has lots of credibility when it comes to invention… one of their most popular summer camps is about invention. But I still love how they broke outside the academic box in this issue to feature, for example, "The Startup Boys: A Conversation with Yelp.com Founders Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman." Like so many computer and Internet entrepreneurs before them, they started out young and without advanced degrees. Simmons was 20 when he became lead engineer for the company that would become PayPal. Stoppelman dropped out of the Harvard MBA program to join a different startup. Now they've co-founded their own startup which is doing very well. To see them held up as an example to this academic community is inspiring. Creativity being more important than credentials… I love it.

My daughter was in the kitchen experimenting, making a mess with food colorings and water, when I read the article, "Toy Story," in this issue. After she'd finished her project, I handed her the issue to read, suggesting that she start with that story. In it, toy inventor Tim Kehoe describes how he "…destroyed an oven (I had a small fire), a couple of bathtubs (they are stained forever), and pots and pans…" in the process of inventing colored bubbles called "Zubbles," due out on the market later this year. Like the rest of the issue, she found it interesting and inspiring… but I do hope our bathtubs don't end up stained as a result.

Imagine always includes articles about planning for college and reviews by actual students of different colleges and universities. This issue includes a "combined" review with opinions from many students at Penn State University. Over time, in multiple issues, readers get overviews of many different kinds of universities.

Another excellent feature of Imagine is the Resources sections, again, tailored to fit the theme of the issue. So this issue includes four pages of "Selected Opportunities in Invention and Entrepreneurship," including competitions, summer programs, and Web sites. There are also another four pages of general academic programs for Summer 2008, including "competitors" to CTY like Northwestern's CTD and Duke's TIP, as well as many lesser known local and regional programs. There is also a story about one of these programs, "Governor's Schools," by two students who have attended them. It's the voices of these young people that make the articles in Imagine so relevant to the young people who read them.

A subscription to Imagine can be a valuable asset for a developing gifted person. We've also bought back issues on specific themes of interest to my daughter.

When she was young, we never failed when we bought her toys, music, or videos that had received the "Parents' Choice Gold Award." Imagine has received their seal of approval four times. It's great to know that Parents' Choice's good judgment extends into resources for the teen years.