WASHINGTON -- For Monica DiLeo, a senior at Cheshire High School, the highlight of her week in Washington was meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House.

DiLeo, one of 104 students selected for the U.S. Senate Youth Program, met with the president Wednesday and had her photo taken with him and the other student delegates in the East Room of the White House.

"I worked in his 2008 presidential campaign and was among the thousands who saw him speak in Hartford," DiLeo said. "But I freaked out to see him in the White House. It was incredible."

DiLeo has been active in various high school Democratic Party groups in Connecticut. She said she plans to major in chemistry in college and then attend medical school.

The 104 high school students -- two from each state, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense schools -- visited Washington for a weeklong intensive study of their government.

The other Connecticut delegate, Abdul-Razak Mohammed Zachariah, a junior at West Haven High School, said he was impressed by the other delegates.

"All of them are so different -- a lot of states are very different than Connecticut -- but we all worked great together," Zachariah said.

His career goal is electrical engineering.

The delegates also met with John Roberts, chief justice of the United States; Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; British Ambassador Peter Westmacott; NASA administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr.; Brian Lamb, CEO of C-SPAN; and members of Congress.

This week marked the program's 50th anniversary. Just as DiLeo, Zachariah and the other delegates met with Obama, the first class of delegates in 1962 met with President John F. Kennedy at the White House.

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Conn. students savor week in nation's capital