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Summer College

Students in front of Kent

We are no longer accepting Pre-College applications for Summer College. During the Rolling round, we are only able to admit qualified high school students to the waitlist. Visiting Undergraduates are welcome to apply.

Join us online this summer to explore new subjects, delve into a current interest with intense focus, and broaden your powers of perception while earning college credit for 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., Homestead High School, Mequon, WI - 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 (10 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 13 - July 1	June 13 - July 15	July 5 - July 22

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

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

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

Acting Fundamentals (Session 1)

*Taught Online* This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study.

Session(s)

Session I

Acting Fundamentals (Session 2)

*Taught Online* This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study.

Session(s)

Session II

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

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session I

Art of the East: China

*Taught Online* This course is an introduction to the arts of China focusing on the bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Chinese appropriation of the Buddha image, and the evolution of landscape and figure painting traditions.

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 object 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

Drama: Embodiment and Transformation

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session I

Experimental Animation: Handmade Motion

*Taught Online* Experimental Animation: Handmade Motion will introduce fundamental concepts and techniques of animation through a series of exercises and assignments which touch on the history, theory and practice of this dynamic medium. Utilizing a responsive, interactive web-based platform to facilitate lectures, screenings, technical demonstrations, collaborative production processes and direct feedback, students will develop independent and group animations.

Session(s)

Session II

Film and the Moving Image

This program is currently at capacity. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session I

Fundamentals of Computer Programming I: Swift and iOS Application Development

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session I

Game Theory I

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session II

Genre Fundamentals: Fiction

*Taught Online* What are basics of complex storytelling? What are its conventions and deviations? This course explores fiction by focusing on specific narrative strategies and how they change over time. Authors will most likely include Herman Melville, Henry James, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and Ali Smith, among others.

Session(s)

Session I

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 II

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 truth or an illusion? Is it an opiate or an effervescent? Is it the origin of civilization or the end of it? Is it some of these things, or none, or all? The task of defining religion has bedeviled scholars for centuries and remains a perennial concern in the academic field of Religious Studies.

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

Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia (China)

*Taught Online* This is a two-course sequence on the civilizations of Japan and China, with emphasis on major transformation of individual identity, community, and nation in these cultures and societies from the Middle Ages to the present. The China course of the sequence will review the broad characteristics of Chinese civilization from its beginnings, with special emphasis on the social, political, and cultural transformations from the nineteenth century to the present.

Session(s)

Session I

Introduction to the Civilizations of East Asia (Japan)

*Taught Online* This is a two-course sequence on the civilizations of Japan and China, with emphasis on major transformation of individual identity, community, and nation in these cultures and societies from the Middle Ages to the present. This course of the sequence focuses on Japan from 1600 to the postwar era. The two courses may be taken separately.

Session(s)

Session II

Introductory Statistical Methods and Applications for the Social Sciences

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session I

Nutritional Science

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session I

Principles of Biology

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session III

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 Methods and Applications

*Taught Online* This course introduces statistical techniques and methods of data analysis. including the use of statistical software. Examples are drawn from the biological, physical, and social sciences. Students are required to apply the techniques discussed to data drawn from actual research.

Session(s)

Session I

The Workings of the Human Brain: From Brain to Behavior

This program is currently at capacity during the Extended and Rolling deadlines. If you select this course as a first choice on your application, please apply for a second option that fulfills your interests.

Session(s)

Session II

Visual Language: On Images (Section 92)

*Taught Online* Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content.

Session(s)

Session II

Visual Language: On Images (Section 93)

*Taught Online* Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, illusion, analogy, metaphor, time and memory, nature and culture, abstraction, the role of the author, and universal systems can be illuminated through these primary investigations.

Session(s)

Session II