Last school year, Mia Hoffman, a rising senior at Westerville North High School, was named one of two 11th grade winners nationally of the SpiRIT Writing Contest for 2016. The SpiRIT writing contest is sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York. Hoffman’s winning essay, “Life Behind the Hearing Aid,” earned her the choice of a scholarship and paid travel expenses to the Explore Your Future program, a summer career exploration program at the Rochester Institute of Technology or a $500 cash prize. She has decided to attend the Explore Your Future Program at RIT in July 2016. Hoffman submitted her entry with the support and recommendation of her guidance counselor, Melissa Simashkevich, and her AP Literature teacher, Leslie Baumann. This will be Hoffman’s second trip to RIT as she attended a weekend engineering program in February 2016 for prospective students.