The Wake Forest Summer Immersion Program offers 19 unique on-campus institutes for high school students. Dive into a career path or field of study that interests you. Join us for summer in the forest!


Bioscience

Experimentation, exploration, innovation. The building blocks of science, hands-on. Cutting-edge investigation draws upon ideas and methods from a broad range of experiments spanning the sciences and engineering. Guest lectures, field trips and a lab component are included in this week-long residential experience.


Business

Develop practical skills and the ability to think critically while gaining valuable exposure to important business topics and methods of analysis. In addition to working alongside business professionals and collaborating in teams, this institute ends with a team presentation, in which students pitch ideas to potential investors showcasing the knowledge they gained throughout the week.


Debate and Public Advocacy

Spend one week this summer with Wake Forest University building confidence speaking, arguing, and learning to passionately advocate for yourself and others. Students will engage in discussion about current events and learn skills such as persuasion, legal reasoning, and the art of communication. Whether in the classroom, the boardroom, or the halls of Congress, students will enjoy applying advocacy skills in whichever environment their future takes them.


Engineering

Are you a problem solver that wants to explore sustainable solutions to our ever changing society? Do you find yourself asking why to many of the systems we function in?  Prepare to be introduced to the fundamentals of engineering and the variety of career pathways available to engineers. Students will learn the engineering design process and the interactive prototyping method, through hands-on design challenges where students will display their knowledge.


Entrepreneurship

Gain a 360 degree perspective on the start-up world while planning and launching your own business. Meet and engage with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Tour start-up companies at different stages of development. Learn key principles of innovation, identifying market opportunities, and financing new ventures. Put it all into practice by planning, pitching, and launching a start-up by the end of the week.


Filmmaking

Learn to tell captivating stories through film and the fundamentals of video production. Students will learn about various forms of film, visit local museums and athletic facilities to see how non-fiction storytelling is utilized in the real-world, and create a short film.


Finance and Investing

Get ahead of the game. Learn and experience how investing works. Dive into the world of investments – stocks, bonds and mutual funds/exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Explore popular investing approaches, techniques and strategies to confidently learn how fundamental analysis plays a role in valuation.


Health and Exercise Science

Are you interested in health, and how exercise can help you be healthier? Have you wondered how the body works, and the testing practices used to identify and treat diseases? Gain hands-on experience in the health and exercise science field and insight into the many career opportunities available in the different disciplines of exercise science. Students will learn from Wake Forest faculty about the different systems in the body, practice using technology for health procedures like blood pressure and electromyography (EMG), and tour campus facilities dedicated to health and fitness.


Law

Your permission to access the bench is granted. Experience an insider’s view of the legal industry and explore the pursuit of innocence and justice. Find out what it’s really like to be a lawyer. This is your chance to investigate a criminal justice case at Wake Forest School of Law’s Innocence and Justice Clinic through the search for what happened. Learn to analyze evidence, make your argument, network with judges and attorneys and dive into the law industry to discover if this is the career path for you!


Leadership

Enhance your ability to inspire and influence people in reaching a collective goal before college. Personal growth, exploration and reflection promote students who will be prepared to make a difference in their communities and create positive change in the world.


Medicine

Step into your white coat and discover what being a healthcare professional is really like? Gain hands-on experience in the medical field and insight into the many career opportunities available within the various disciplines of medicine. You’ll visit healthcare facilities, participate in simulations and labs, and learn basic skills like taking blood pressure and suturing.


Neuroscience

Explore the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field encompassing the study of the nervous system and its role in regulating behavior. Examine the structure of the brain through hands-on dissection. Learn how sensory systems detect stimuli in the environment and how drugs affect the brain. Visit active neuroscience labs as well as conduct exciting neuroscience experiments.


Policy and Politics

Learn about the democratic republic, your constitutional rights, and the powers that shape current laws. Explore the efficacy of actually being empowered, which comes from the experience of doing politics effectively with others. Practice the art of thinking clearly, speaking persuasively, acting ethically, and working in collaboration with others.


Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Dive into the structure of the brain through hands-on dissection and learn about how illusions, emotions, and biases affect how we see and interact with the world. Can you really trust everything you see and hear? You’ll conduct your own observational study to get a more in-depth look at the world and people around you.


Screenwriting

Do you have an interest in screenwriting and the art of a great script? Are you passionate about storytelling? Do you love creative writing and dream about creating the next great movie, documentary, or television series? If so, then the Screenwriting Institute is for you. The Screenwriting Institute is a week-long program designed for high school students to gain an understanding of the art of crafting scripts for film, television and/or video games. Students will learn how to write their own screenplay, visit institutions highly regarded in the film industry, and create two short screenplays by the end of the week.


Sports Business

Interested in turning your enthusiasm and passion for sports into a business career in one of the fastest growing fields worldwide? This institute provides an in-depth exploration of the many professional options available in the ever evolving global sports marketplace. Students will gain an understanding of the unique ways the sports industry applies business principles and learn about jobs within leagues, teams, athletic departments, venues, media and more. Students will also serve as consultants in a team project offering advice and expertise to a client organization/team.


Sports Medicine

The program will provide hands-on experiences ranging from the very building blocks of sports medicine to the integration of advanced techniques to injury prevention, rehabilitation, and athletic performance. Students will learn from the esteemed Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr. Brian Waterman, as well as countless experienced orthopaedic medical professionals, trainers, coaches and, of course, the athletes themselves.


Technology

Enter the wonderful world of virtual reality and user experience by diving deep into emerging technology. The world’s most rapidly growing industry is an endless frontier of opportunity for those with innovative minds and the ability to turn ideas into reality.


Writing for Life

What makes writing good? While some might say “clear expression of ideas” or “error-free prose,” what really makes writing good is that it works. The writing does something for us, whether it’s an essay that gains us admission to our first-choice college, a resume that lands us our dream job, a memo that helps us earn a promotion or an article that shares groundbreaking research with the public. By the end of the institute, you’ll have built a portfolio that showcases these newly honed writing and rhetorical skills.

Learn more about the Summer Immersion Program

Summer Immersion Program students on-campus for their institutes.