UMass Amherst Summer Pre-College: Programming for Aspiring Scientists Recently Updated

Our residential and online pre-college programs are designed to provide you with a preview of the UMass student experience, including college-level academics and being part of a learning community of high school students from across the U.S. and the world. Our programs feature faculty-led courses, state-of-the-art facilities, and the #1 campus dining in the U.S., as ranked by the Princeton Review.

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The use of computers in today’s world has become nearly universal, whether you use them to Google the latest factoid, send an email, write a school paper, or carry out a calculation. This 2-week course will give you a glimpse into how scientists use computers to solve problems.

We will begin by learning how to use Python, an open-source programming environment. Computers can only do what is asked of them, so scientists must write instructions for them. We will learn how to create these instructions, called algorithms, and translate them into Python code. And then we will learn how to visualize and fit data and apply this knowledge to a variety of examples, ranging from figuring out how the trajectory of a soccer ball is altered by air resistance to modeling epidemics. No previous programming experience is assumed.

Open to rising high school sophomores – seniors. Those new to programming are highly encouraged.    

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