UCLA Summer Sessions: International Development Summer Institute

The UCLA International Development Summer Institute is a program for high school students passionate about developing innovative strategies to address some of the most critical issues the world is facing today. 

Through rigorous coursework, guided discussions and debates, an immersive project incubator lab, and workshops led by experts, students will be trained to develop policy memos and design interventions that are economically, environmentally, and culturally sustainable.

This program engages students with debates around the widening patterns of disparities of wealth, power, privilege, and access to social justice—as well as the policies, interventions, and forms of citizen engagement intended to address them—both between and within the countries of the Global South and North. Utilizing Los Angeles, a microcosm of the developing world, as a living laboratory, this program offers students a unique opportunity to study, analyze, and critically assess the social, political and economic forces that have shaped inequality in the modern world through an interdisciplinary lens.

For participants of the International Development Summer Institute, the first week of the program will be conducted virtually (online). All meeting times will take place in Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), unless otherwise noted on program schedule and syllabus. Participants must log-in to virtual sessions at the times indicated on the program schedule.

Living in on-campus housing during the second two weeks of the program is mandatory (June 30th – July 13th). Housing is not available for the first week of the program.