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Education

Computer Camps For The Summer 16

Posted by Cliff from the think-warm dept.
An Anonymous Coward, with an outlook a few months away and many degrees warmer, asks: "My nephew (older teenager) is wanting to spend a summer in the U.S., preferably learning some college computer stuff. Anyone have any recommendations for a cool place to spend the summer? Any universities running such programs as he's pretty computer literate?"
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Computer Camps For The Summer More

Computer Camps For The Summer

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  • I have gone to, and worked for CTY. I have to say they traditionally have had a spectacular introductory computer science course. In recent years most of the people responsible for designing a lot of their (IMHO) better courses (such as Theoretical Introduction to Computer Science, Number Theory, Digital Logic, and Introduction to Neuroscience) have left CTY for a number of reasons, including sometimes significant philosophical differences with the administration about how the courses should be run. In recent years it looks like they have added a number of new course, such as Cryptography, but I worry that people going are in essence buying what was recently a good brand name, as opposed to a good education experience.
  • I know, I taught several of the lectures for the Boston Alumni Group last year ;-)

    Louis
  • Check out Camp CAEN [umich.edu] offered by the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. There's C++, Java, web and digital video stuff (makes good use of the cool Media Union [umich.edu] facilities), and Palm development.

    Plus, Ann Arbor [umich.edu] is a really nice place in the summer!

  • When I was a kid, i spent 4 consecutive summers at Camp Watonka [watonka.com]. It's not just a computer science camp, but a well-rounded and fun summer experience. It's in Hawley PA, and all the info on their programs is on their website. The only problem is that its all boys :(, which on the other hand might not be so bad for you goatse.cx [goatse.cx] fans, :-D
  • For the past 3 summers I worked for Computer Ed High Tech Camps outside of Boston, MA. (http://www.computercamp.com) We have campers as young as 8 years old and as old as 17. The courses range from "Intro to the Internet," "keyboarding," "Beginning Basic," "Computer Art," or "Build and Repair a PC" to "Advanced Web Publishing," "Advanced Legotechnics," "Advanced Java," "Advanced C++," "3d Modeling," "Computer Networks," "UNIX" etc... (the courses are on the web page.) We tended to get from 180-280 campers per session. (so even with the wide age range there are a lot of kids your child's age) And we get a fair number of campers from other counties (Last year I know we had a few from Germany, some from France, one from Kuait, one from Mexico, one from Spain, one from Itally, and probably a few others I don't remember)
    But the main reason I would recomend sending your child there is the great staff. Composed mainly of college students, every one of them really knows their stuff, and they love doing it. I know of one counselor who is currently working for Monster Games, another who (I believe) was working for SquareSoft for a while, and another who is currently working for VALinux and Sourceforge. (Me, well I'm still in school, but feel free to check out one of my OS products... Althea... Link at bottom...)
    Last year I actually looked into what other camps are offering, and the other camps (who I won't name) tend to have one general "programming" class or an "Internet Class." Well, Computer Ed has about 40 computer related classes to choose from. (plus a few sports oriented classes to get some of that energy out of them...)

    So, yeah, if your kid is interested in Computers I'd definately recommend Computer Ed. I think their number is 1-888-2COMPED. Tell them Ethan gave you their number.

    ----
    For a stable IMAP E-mail client for X-windows, check out Althea (http://althea.sourceforge.net)

  • I just finished a summer program at the school I've decided to go to for college (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology), named Operation Catapult

    They have a really cool summer engineering program, for anyone that has an interest in any type of engineering. Only juniors are allowed in, so there is a little bit of "recruiting" going on. It's 3 weeks, and tons of fun. A nice mix of Sports and other fun activities also.

    The thing is run by the school, with real profs doing the teaching, and students from the school are the consolers.

    I had a blast, check it out... http://www.rose-hulman.edu/catapult/ [rose-hulman.edu]

  • When I was 13 (turning 14) I got a job at a computer firm that did all Microsoft stuff. I had been using Linux then and years before then but I'd settle for a computer job even if it didn't involve Linux. All our software that we write is very (very) heavy database oriented. Despite it revolving all around Microsoft product, I still was able to learn a lot since relationship databases, no matter who they're implemented by, always have the same concept. This allowed me to start playing with SQL on my own after gaining a large amount of experience with MS Access / SQL at work. While I did no programming while there, I was still able to gain enormous knowledge from in particular two guys who worked there. Whenever I had a question about C or math (of effectively any level), the one was always able to help me. The other was also very smart and taught me about state machines, discrete math, etc. All of those things I consider completely indespensible to know. I still work at the same company. It's been almost two years. While it is possible, I find it nearly _impossible_ to learn computer science of any sort (on a smaller scale, math) to any sort of deep understanding in a class setting. Luckily, I'm quite an independant learner and would rather be left to my own devices in order to learn. A camp setting would most likely drive me mad. By your relative (can't remember the relation, been typing too long) some good books and maybe even try to help him find a job.
  • I second Camp CAEN.
    I attended one of the '97 sessions.
    Bring a comp if you do because the real cool stuff happens at about 3 a.m in the dorms.
    When I was there, there was a contest to hack the bell tower on North Campus. I guess its midi seq. was on the net. No one did while I was there. (Would have been great to have been out playing beach volleyball and had some "hockey game music" playing.
  • As a high school student, I had the opportunity to sign up for the NexTech [nextechsummit.com] program which is located in Austin, TX. It only lasts for ten days so it may not be exactly what you are looking for. However, it seems like the exposure to the industry would be very insightful. The only drawback (and the reason that I didn't go myself) was the price involved. You are looking at a $2000 price tag just on the program itself. That doesn't include airfare to and from Austin. If you can afford to spend $2000 for ten days and are looking for something that says 'National Leadership Conference' to present to colleges and universities during the college-application process, go for it!
  • Just look what happened to Bill Gates [puffin.org].

    (Okay, okay, so you've heard that one, what can I say, I'm a sucker for the classics).


    --

  • I have friend who is going for a month to a place in Washington called Digikey.
    Its for high-school level people, and it teaches you to program.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Plus, Ann Arbor is a really nice place in the summer!

    I can vouch for that. Ann Arbor's a great place (safe, fun, diverse, active, naturey and culturey) to spend summers.

    Also, the computer facilities at the UM campus are among the best in the world.

  • Also, the computer facilities at the UM campus are among the best in the world.

    Let me qualify that a little more. The teen in question is coming from outside the US, correct?

    Having visited university campuses and computer facilities in almost 50 countries on 5 continents, I can say with confidence that the University of Michigan computer facilities will make any foreign kid who is into computers faint with exhilarated delight.

  • I volunteered as a counselor at one of the locations of National Computer Camps [corpcenter.com] one summer a nubmer of years ago. The program was pretty good - the kids learn actual languages, from BASIC for the youngest through Pascal and C for the oldest (in fact, we had a few doing work in Assembly). Most students brought their own PCs. After instruction, there was plenty of Doom and games as well.

    The sessions are two weeks each and they have 5 locations in the U.S., mostly in the east (headed in Connecticut).

  • We've got a pretty stiff admission test (you had to score high on the SAT in 7th or 8th grade), but the computer science course [jhu.edu] is fabulous. Hmm...they may have changed the syllabus recently. The original version is still being taught by the Boston CTY Alumni [mattababy.org].

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