In the summer, there are many opportunities high school students can choose from to prepare themselves for the coming school year and beyond. Some students choose to take internships, others volunteer, and others participate in pre-collegiate summer programs. Whether the goal is to learn about a possible career prospect, prepare oneself for college, or simply gain new experiences, there's a summer activity for everyone.
This past summer, Amanda Cottle, a Berkeley High School junior, attended a two-week-long pre-med summer program in Boston. “I think I’m definitely interested in the medical field, and I learned a lot about the different paths of medicine,” she said. “It was really cool. We got to go to a hospital and, you know, play with fancy, expensive equipment.” Cottle also got CPR certified through the program.
However, Cottle explained, the program wasn’t cheap. “You could either be on campus, but that costs extra money, or you could be off campus. It definitely is expensive,” Cottle said, “I’m very privileged to be able to do (it).” According to Summer Springboard’s website, the residential tuition for a Pre-Med program is almost $5.5 thousand.
The costliness of these types of summer programs was also reflected in the experiences of BHS senior Ilana Nickolaus, who took a six-week program at the University of California Los Angeles called the Summer College Immersion Program. Though she knew that she wanted to do something like the UCLA program even before she entered high school, Nickolaus also knew that college programs of its kind were expensive.
“I worked the summer after my freshman year and the summer after my sophomore year, and I used some of that money for (this) summer,” Nickolaus said.
Though the base price of the program was around six thousand dollars, according to Nickolaus, there were “additional costs that you don’t always see at the beginning” that made it more expensive. The cost of the program included housing, food, and the classes, but not transportation (Nickolaus drove there herself). “(The classes) are pretty spendy, but the college classes are always spendy,” Nickolaus said.
The high costs of the program and general inequitable price structure, according to Nickolaus, was a determining factor in its levels of socioeconomic and racial diversity. “I would say (that) this program was definitely one of the, like, least diverse places I’ve ever been in my life,” Nickolaus said. Growing up in Berkeley, she was used to more diversity, she explained. Particularly, in terms of socioeconomic class, there were many more wealthy students, according to Nickolaus.
This was similar in Cottle’s experience. “There were a lot of kids, especially, who weren’t from the U.S. ... and they were like, really, really, extremely rich,” Cottle said, “They were talking about how they came (there) on their private jets.”
The difference in socioeconomic diversity and question of equity between more expensive programs and ones that were affordable or had financial aid was clear, Sofia Bloom, a BHS junior explained. Bloom has attended two different summer programs and explained that when the program was economically accessible, “I actually saw more economic diversity,” Bloom said. “I knew there (were) two kids. .. who were there completely free.”
Nickolaus explained the UCLA program was so expensive that she’d recommend that students should take classes at a community college nearby. “I think you can get a lot of the same things out of it by just taking the coursework,” she said. “You don’t get the social aspect, and it’s fun to live (on campus), but I do think that it is the best way to do it (with) less spending.”
Besides college programs such as the ones Cottle, Nickolaus, and Bloom attended, there are more affordable ways to gain professional, educational, and leadership experience during the summer. For instance, Daniel Cardenis, a BHS senior, took a biotech internship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a research center located in the Berkeley Hills.
Cardenis’ particular internship, which was six weeks long and mostly online, taught not only biotechnology but also skills that weren’t related to STEM, such as how to act professionally, he explained.
Jose Rubio-Moran, a senior who worked at the Makers Camp at King Middle School this summer, also attested to this idea, "(I gained the experience) of just working people in general, as well as being like a teacher," Rubio-Moran said.
Another aspect was that Cardenis was paid for the internship as unpaid internships in California are illegal. The internship also covered factors such as transportation making it both affordable and accessible.
“I generally like to save money, but, like, we didn’t have to spend too much, because they had a shuttle that took us up directly out there,” Cardenis said.
Another affordable summer time activity that allows for leadership growth and community connection is volunteering. One BHS junior, Iona Hall, gained experience over the summer for volunteering at Dorothy Day House, a volunteer-based organization that provides resources for unhoused and low-income individuals in Berkeley. For six hours per day, Hall’s particular job was to assist in preparing and serving food and also hosting a pop-up pantry to provide resources, she explained. Though Hall didn’t want to go into public service as a career, she volunteered because,“I’ve always had a passion for helping people, and when my friend told me about this opportunity, I just thought I really needed to try that out,” Hall said.
Both Hall and Cardenis felt that their summer activities were rewarding and worthwhile, both noting it as something they would do again.
“I would 100 percent recommend (the internship) to another person, like anybody (who’s) interested in STEM or anything, (even) if you don’t know it,” Cardenis said.
Conversely, Nickolaus explained that she wouldn’t do a similar college program again. “I think what I got out of it the first time ... I wouldn’t get a lot more out a second time,” she said. “And also, it’s just too expensive for me to do more than once.” However, for Cottle, the program was a worthwhile time to spend her summer and she’d recommend it to someone else, despite its costliness. “I met a bunch of people through this, and I’m still in contact with a lot of them,” said Cottle. “I got to learn about different, not only medical experiences, but people not from the U.S. and how their lives were.” In addition to the Pre-Med summer program that Cottle attended, Summer Springboard also offers other educational programs such as business, engineering, and law programs.
Bloom explained she’d do a college program again. “I think if you can do it, you should, because (due to) these programs I’m still in touch with my roommate,” Bloom said, “and I made some lifelong friends who live all over the world.”