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Summer College

Join us online this summer to explore new subjects, delve into a current interest with intense focus, and broaden your powers of perception while taking undergraduate courses at the University of Chicago. As a Summer Session student, you have the opportunity to enroll in undergraduate courses drawn from the regular curriculum of the College at the University of Chicago.

Because of Summer Session I learned so much about myself and who I am in this world. I studied the hard sciences alongside the humanities alongside the social sciences, all melding together to create a truly unique experience.
Aaron H., 3rd year in the College -

You will have access to the same exceptional educational resources available to all students during the regular academic year. All of our classes are taught by distinguished professors and experienced lecturers. In these smaller class settings, you will be able to receive personal attention from your professors and get to know other students in your class well.

Details

Courses can be three or five weeks long. Read each course listing carefully.

Each summer course, regardless of length, is the equivalent of a full, quarter-long (9 week) course, and meets for a least 30 contact hours.

Summer College will be taught remotely online. There is no hybrid or in-person option for these courses. Students cannot live in residence on campus if they enroll in an online course.

  • Once you choose the course(s) for which you would like to apply, make a note of the department code and course number (ex. ANTH 21501).
  • Make sure you don’t choose courses with conflicting schedules.
  • Credits earned as a Summer College student will not count towards graduation requirements if you matriculate as an undergraduate at UChicago.
  • See individual course descriptions for prerequisites, if any.

Eligibility: Current high school juniors and seniors.

  Session I
(3 weeks)
Session I
(5 weeks)
Session II
(3 weeks)
Course Dates June 10 - June 28 June 10 - July 12 July 1 - July 19

To search for courses based on your grade level and academic interest, check out the course finder.

Courses in Program

20th Century American Short Fiction

*Taught Online*  This course presents America's major writers of short fiction in the 20th century.  We will begin with Willa Cather's "Paul's Case" in 1905 and proceed to the masters of High Modernism, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Porter, Welty, Ellison, Nabokov, on through the next generation, O'Connor, Pynchon, Roth, Mukherjee, Coover, Carver, and end with more recent work by Danticat, Tan and the microfictionists.

Session(s)

Session II

A Brief History of Doom: Ragnarok & Other Apocalypses

*Taught Online*  This course examines the idea of the “end of the world” as conceived in Old Norse, biblical, and other traditions, ancient and modern. Topics to be discussed include visions of the apocalypse and afterlife in Norse Mythology (Snorri’s Edda, The Poetic Edda, The Saga of the Volsungs), the Book of Revelation, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Wagner’s Ring cycle, and Marvel’s Thor franchise.

Session(s)

Session I

Adolescent Development

*Taught Online*  Adolescence represents a period of unusually rapid growth and development. At the same time, under the best of social circumstances and contextual conditions, the teenage years represent a challenging period. The period also affords unparalleled opportunities with appropriate levels of support. Thus, the approach taken acknowledges the challenges and untoward outcomes, while also speculates about the predictors of resiliency and the sources of positive youth development.

Session(s)

Session I

African Civilization 1

*Taught Online*  Part one considers literary, oral, linguistic, and material sources to investigate African societies and states from the early Iron Age through the emergence of the Atlantic World. Case studies include: the empires of Ghana and Mali, the Swahili Coast, Great Zimbabwe, Nok of Nigeria, and medieval Ethiopia. We also consider religious and spiritual transformation, including Islam in Africa, as well as the origins and effects of European contact, and the emergence of the transatlantic trade in enslaved human beings.

Session(s)

Session I

America in World Civilization II

*Taught Online*  The American Civ sequence examines America as a contested idea and a contested place by reading and writing about a wide array of primary sources. In the process, students gain a new sense of historical awareness and of the making of America. The course is designed both for history majors and non-majors who want to deepen their understanding of the nation's history, encounter some enlightening and provocative voices from the past, and develop the qualitative methodology of historical thinking. 

Session(s)

Session I

America in World Civilization-III

*Taught Online*  The American Civ sequence examines America as a contested idea and a contested place by reading and writing about a wide array of primary sources. In the process, students gain a new sense of historical awareness and of the making of America. The course is designed both for history majors and non-majors who want to deepen their understanding of the nation's history, encounter some enlightening and provocative voices from the past, and develop the qualitative methodology of historical thinking. 

Session(s)

Session II

Approaches to Digital Humanities Using Python

*Taught Online*  This course introduces students to (1) current work in digital humanities with examples of the software applications being used and the computational research being done in literary, historical, linguistic, and cultural studies; and (2) the principles and practices of computer programming using the Python programming language.

Session(s)

Session I

Beginning Fiction Workshop

*Taught Online*  "All writers are exiles wherever they live and their work is a lifelong journey toward a lost land.” So wrote Janet Frame, a singularly talented author who was institutionalized at the age of 21, then saved from a lobotomy only because she won a literary prize.

Session(s)

Session I

Black Holes

*Taught online* White dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes, the so-called compact objects, are among the most remarkable objects in the universe. Their most distinctive feature which ultimately is the one responsible for their amazing properties is their prodigiously high density.  All compact objects are the product of the final stages of stellar evolution.

Session(s)

Session II

Comprehensive General Chemistry 1

*Taught Online*  This is the first in a three-course sequence that is a comprehensive survey of modern descriptive, inorganic, and physical chemistry for students with a good secondary school exposure to general chemistry. We cover atomic and molecular theories, chemical periodicity, chemical reactivity and bonding, chemical equilibria, acid-base equilibria, solubility equilibria, phase equilibria, thermodynamics, electrochemistry, kinetics, quantum mechanics, and nuclear chemistry.

Session(s)

Session I

Contemporary Art

This course is currently at capacity. Students who currently are on the waitlist will be given priority if places become available.

Session(s)

Session II

Critical Videogame Studies

*Taught Online*   Since the 1960s, games have blossomed into the world’s most profitable artistic and cultural form. This course attends to a broad range of video game genres, including roguelikes (Hades), horror games (Until Dawn), visual novels (Butterfly Soup), cozy games (At Winter’s End), time loop games (12 Minutes), serious games (Never Alone), idle games (Cookie Clicker), and several others.

Session(s)

Session I

Drama: Embodiment and Transformation

*Taught Online*  This course seeks to develop an appreciation and understanding of a variety of processes by which dramatic scripts are theatrically realized, with an emphasis on the text’s role in theatrical production rather than as literature. Students will learn a range of theatrical concepts and techniques, including script analysis and its application to staging, design and acting exercises. Students will be required to act, direct, and design.

Session(s)

Session I

Game Theory I

*Taught Online*  The origins of game theory in political science reach back to the arms race at the height of the cold war. Since then, it’s applications in political science have proliferated to explaining regime transitions, civil war conduct, and even climate change.

Session(s)

Session II

Internet Censorship and Online Speech

*Taught online*   Information dissemination and online discourse on the Internet are subject to the algorithms and filters that operate on Internet infrastructure, from network firewalls to search engines. This course will explore the technologies that are used to control access to online speech and information, and cutting-edge technologies that can empower citizens in the face of these information controls.

Session(s)

Session II

Introduction to Biological Psychology

*Taught Online*  This course is designed to satisfy the upper division undergraduate core breadth requirement for the undergraduate major in Psychology (PSYC 20300). The material will introduce undergraduate psychology students to the fundamentals of biological psychology and neuroscience. We will concentrate on biological processes which underlie human and animal behavior.

Session(s)

Session I

Introduction to Quantitative Modeling in Biology

*Taught Online*  Although mathematics and biology have traditionally not gotten along, recent advances in molecular biology and medicine have made biological experiments essentially quantitative. This course introduces mathematical ideas that are useful for understanding and analyzing biological data, including data description and fitting, hypothesis testing and Bayesian thinking, Markov models, and differential equations.

Session(s)

Session II

Introduction to Religious Studies

*Taught Online*  What is religion? Is it the source of truth? Is it fiction? Believe it or not, religion affects what we think, what we do, and how we situate ourselves and others. In this introductory course, we will examine the intertwined histories of the concept of religion and the academic study of religion. We will familiarize ourselves with classical and contemporary theorists of religion and consider the methods, motivations, and historical contexts that have made their theories of religion possible.

Session(s)

Session II

Introduction to the Arts of the Italian Renaissance

*Taught Online*  This course will cover the major themes and works of the Italian Renaissance, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture. We will consider stylistic development of the arts from the period of roughly 1300 (late Medieval/pre-Renaissance predecessors) to 1560. Throughout the course we will interrogate the concept of “Renaissance” as a unifying term and examine its relationship to the Medieval in terms of both continuity and change.

Session(s)

Session II

Introductory Statistical Methods and Applications for the Social Sciences

*Taught Online*  This course introduces and applies fundamental statistical concepts, principles, and procedures to the analysis of data in the social and behavioral sciences. Students will learn computation, interpretation, and application of commonly used descriptive and inferential statistical procedures as they relate to social and behavioral research. These include z-test, t-test, bivariate correlation and simple linear regression with an introduction to analysis of variance and multiple regression.

Session(s)

Session I

Language, Culture, and Education

*Taught Online*   In this course, we examine past and current theories and research about differential educational achievement in US schools, including: (1) theories that focus on the characteristics of people (e.g., their psychological characteristics, their internal traits, their essential qualities); (2) theories that focus on the characteristics of groups and settings, (e. g., ethnic group culture, language, school culture); and (3) theories that examine how cultural processes mediate political-economic constraints and human action.

Session(s)

Session II

Linear Algebra

*Taught Online*  This course takes a concrete approach to the basic topics of linear algebra.  Topics include vector geometry, systems of linear equations, vector spaces, matrices and determinants, and eigenvalue problems.

Session(s)

Session I

Nutritional Science

*Taught Online*  This course examines the underlying biological mechanisms of nutrient utilization in humans and the scientific basis for setting human nutritional requirements. The relationships between food choices and human health are also explored. Students consider how to assess the validity of scientific research that provides the basis for advice about how to eat healthfully.

Session(s)

Session I

Policy Implementation

*Taught Online*  Good public policy has the potential to advance justice in society. However, once a policy or program is established, there is the challenge of getting it carried out in ways intended by the policy makers or program designers. This course explores some of the common obstacles, dilemmas, and opportunities that emerge when governments and non-governmental actors attempt to put a policy into effect.

Session(s)

Session I

Sarah Baartman through Schitt's Creek: An Introduction to Gender and Popular Culture

*Taught Online*  Throughout the twentieth century, numerous theorists have argued that genders are learned, enacted, and ascribed identities, worked out through interaction. As such, the production of gender as category is carried out in relation to cultural models and artifacts people use to make sense of, model and reject gendered identities, characteristics, and roles.

Session(s)

Session I

Stars

*Taught Online* At the beginning of the 20th century, two astronomers:  Ejnar Hertzprung and Henry Norris Russell independently took catalogues of stars and plotted their brightness as a function of their color. The result, now known as the HR diagram, was to become one of the most influential diagrams in astrophysics. It showed that, contrary to one's naive expectation, the distribution of stars was highly structured.

Session(s)

Session I

Statistical Theory and Methods I

This course is currently at capacity. Students who currently are on the waitlist will be given priority if places become available.

Session(s)

Session I

The Workings of the Human Brain: From Brain to Behavior

*Taught Online*  This course examines how the brain generates behavior.  Topics covered include the organization of the nervous system, the mechanisms by which the brain translates external stimuli into electrical and chemical signals to initiate or modify behavior, and the neurological bases of learning, memory, sleep, cognition, drug addiction, and neurological disorders.

Session(s)

Session I

Visual Language: On Images (Session 1)

This course is currently at capacity. Students who currently are on the waitlist will be given priority if places become available.

Session(s)

Session I