Kick-Start Your College Experience
Register for the Summer Institute and explore topics that will fuel your curiosity, challenge your perspective, and provide a hands-on glimpse into college life and learning.
Summer Institute
Pre-College Summer Programs
For rising junior and senior high school students who want to explore topics that will fuel your curiosity, challenge your perspective, and provide a hands-on glimpse into college life and learning.
- New Media, Journalism, and the Search for Truth
- From Posts to Paychecks
- Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship
- Human Rights Advocacy
- The Science of Play
- Acting, Movement, and Storytelling in 2025: Devising the Narrative Choreopoem
Get a taste of college life in the Muhlenberg Summer Institute, a two-week summer experience featuring programs in new media and journalism, entrepreneurship and economics, theatre, political science, and psychology. Learn critical entrepreneurship skills and how to monetize social media. Refine your theatre performance skills. Understand the how and why of political advocacy to make change. Explore the intersection of journalism, podcasting, and TikTok. Gain an understanding of your brain and what makes fun, fun.
Every Summer Institute program is an introduction to the academic skills, and hands-on learning that will help you succeed in a rigorous college environment. You’ll also get to live like a college student for two weeks — exploring campus and the Lehigh Valley and making valuable connections with faculty, staff, and other students. Each program includes a half-day Career Accelerator session aimed at translating your summer experience into future opportunities.
Questions? Contact us at [email protected]
Join us:
Sunday, June 28 through Saturday, July 11, 2026
2026 Programs
New Media, Journalism, and the Search for Truth
Understand where news comes from and what makes it…news
One in five Americans get their news from TikTok. Nearly half get it from newspapers, and more than half get it from television. These are not as different as you might think. Whether you are currently writing for your high school newspaper, hosting a podcast, or just love the idea of producing good content with integrity, this program will teach you the basics of ethical news-gathering and put you in the field to report and produce original stories in media ranging from podcasting to Instagram to TikTok. Using this knowledge, you will create a portfolio piece — a podcast, article, social-media piece — or something else entirely.
From Posts to Paychecks
Learn how social media makes money
In From Posts to Paychecks, you will learn how social media and other digital platforms are shaping business and marketing at all levels. Discover your inner influencer and learn how to deploy strategies based on the structure of various social media platforms while navigating the challenges within each. You will engage in seminars and workshops, building your own plans and creating content with faculty, peers, and local influencers and businesses. This is where technical innovation, imagination, and financial gain meet. Whatever your social media goals, you will create a plan for success.
Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship
Learn how businesses are started and how they succeed
Explore the full journey of entrepreneurship — from idea generation and market analysis to understanding the behind-the-scenes realities of running a business. In this immersive, hands-on program you will examine the feasibility of business ideas across industries, analyze their trends, and even explore stocks connected to those industries based on student interests. You will have access to the Muhlenberg Makerspace to create a prototype using 3D printing or another technology, then make informed assessments: What does it cost to make? Who is the potential audience? Is it truly feasible? You will leave with a business plan and a new sense of what’s possible.
Human Rights Advocacy
Learn how to change the world for the better
Human rights are under attack. At the same time, the world has never been more connected. The summer institute in Human Rights Advocacy teaches civic leadership, global engagement, legal factors, and politics in order to address complex problems and contribute to social change. Participants will engage in seminars, workshops, and hands-on learning with faculty and peers, developing key skills in leadership and gaining an understanding of the pathways for influencing political change using various forms of written and digital media. You will leave with a plan — for making an impact on the issues you care about most.
The Science of Play
Learn what play can tell us about the connection between the body and mind.
The Oxford definition of play is “to engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than serious or practical purpose.” Science disagrees. Having a good time has real, practical purposes like improving learning, physical health, and mental well-being. In The Science of Play you will use research and practical skills in public health, education, biology, medicine, and psychology to consider how play can enhance well-being across the human lifespan. Through classroom and hands-on experiments, you will engage your mind and body, culminating in the development of a scientifically backed understanding of how to leverage this valuable tool for your own success.
Acting, Movement, and Storytelling in 2025: Devising the Narrative Choreopoem
Tell your story and hone your performance skills
What does it mean to be free in 2025? Are we truly free? In Devising the Narrative Choreopoem, you’ll blend acting, movement, and ensemble-based performance to craft an original narrative choreopoem — an expressive performance form rooted in physicality, poetic language, and collective creation. You will train daily in acting and movement workshops while participating in collaborative storytelling sessions that equip you with tangible creative tools. Throughout the program, you will meet members of the Department of Theatre & Dance to gain mentorship, guidance, and a meaningful glimpse into the life of a theatre student at Muhlenberg. The intensive culminates in an invitation-only sharing of the ensemble’s original work in Muhlenberg’s Black-Box Studio Theatre.
