11 Computer Science Programs for High School Students in Florida
If you’re a high schooler interested in exploring computer science, you understand the importance of both comprehensive theoretical knowledge and hands-on practical experience. Getting a headstart on these aspects early can help with your college admissions and future academics!
Computer science programs are a great way to gain real-world experience in the field. These programs are usually hands-on and theory-focused and can include various extracurricular components to provide a holistic summer pre-college experience. However, picking a program can be difficult. There are many factors like whether it aligns with your goals, the associated costs, and access to additional resources to consider. To help you pick a program that fits your needs, we’ve curated a list of 11 computer science programs in Florida! Note that the following information is based on the most recent program, with dates subject to change but generally similar from year to year.
1. Veritas AI
Location: Virtual
Cost: $2,290 for the 10-week AI Scholars program | $5,400 for the 15-week AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase | $6,900 for both. Need-based financial aid is available for AI Scholars. You can apply here.
Application deadline: On a rolling basis. Spring (January), Summer (May), Fall (September), and Winter (November).
Program dates: Multiple 12-15-week cohorts throughout the year, including spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Eligibility: High school students. AI Fellowship applicants should either have completed the AI Scholars program or exhibit experience with AI concepts or Python.
Veritas AI, established and managed by Harvard graduate students, offers specialized programs for high school students who are interested in artificial intelligence and its applications. The AI Scholars program is a great fit if you're just starting with AI, robotics, machine learning, or data science. This 10-session boot camp introduces you to key AI and data science concepts while allowing you to work on practical projects that can involve robotics applications.
For students seeking a more in-depth and advanced experience, the AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase is a strong option. In this program, you'll work one-on-one with expert mentors from leading universities on personalized research projects. If computer science is your area of interest, you'll have the flexibility to pursue high-level research in this field, developing solutions that integrate AI and computer science. The program also supports your work through access to a publication team that helps you get your research published in high school journals. The fellowship encourages interdisciplinary exploration, so whether you're interested in robotics, finance, medicine, or other fields, you can merge AI with your chosen area of study.
2. AIMI Summer Health AI Bootcamp by Stanford University
Location: Virtual
Cost: $850 participation fee + $40 application fee
Application Deadline: February 28
Dates: June 16-27
Eligibility: High school students entering grades 9-12 in Fall, over the age of 14 by the start of the program.
Stanford’s AIMI Summer Health AI Bootcamp is a virtual, two-week program for high school students centered on Machine Learning applications in healthcare. The curriculum offers online learning modules, group discussions, interactive activities with peers, social events, and Virtual Career Lunch and Learns featuring guest speakers from academia, industry, nonprofits, and government.
Participants explore core topics such as Machine Learning concepts and principles in healthcare, evaluation metrics, strategies, and challenges within the field, as well as foundation models and Generative AI applied in healthcare.
3. Lumiere Research Scholar Program
Application Deadline: Varying deadlines based on cohort.
Location: Remote — you can participate in this program from anywhere in the world!
Eligibility: You must be currently enrolled in high school and demonstrate a high level of academic achievement.
Program Dates: Varies by cohort: summer, fall, winter, or spring. Options range from 12 weeks to 1 year.
Cost: Full financial aid is available!
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program tailored for high school students. The program offers extensive 1-on-1 research opportunities for high school students across a broad range of subject areas that you can explore as a high schooler. The program pairs high school students with Ph.D. mentors to work 1-on-1 on an independent research project. At the end of the 12-week program, you’ll have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from subjects such as psychology, physics, economics, data science, computer science, engineering, chemistry, international relations, and more. You can find more details about the application here.
4. Summer@Brown Online
Location: Virtual
Cost: $3,094 - $5,998, depending on the duration of the program.
Application Deadline: May 9
Dates: June 16 – July 25
Eligibility: Students completing grades 9 to 12, ages 14 to 18 by June 15
Brown University's Summer@Brown online program offers over 50 courses designed to deliver challenging and engaging educational experiences. Students can select from three study formats: fully asynchronous, mostly asynchronous, or blended learning. Throughout the program, you'll engage in independent research, tackle college-level material, and earn a Digital Certificate of Completion. If you enroll in a course that lasts three weeks or more, you'll also receive a Course Performance Report.
With more than ten subject tracks to choose from, you have a wide range of options. The Engineering and Technology track includes a course on AI, Data Science, and Machine Learning, which introduces you to analytics, business applications, and programming using AI and data science principles. This four-week blended course provides hands-on experience by allowing you to develop Machine Learning concepts through a real-world project. Other technology courses available are Introduction to Statistical Programming in R and Introduction to Computational Mathematics and Big Data Visualization.
5. Stanford Pre-College Summer Institute
Location: Virtual. There are some in-person options too!
Cost: $3,050
Application Deadline: March 29
Dates: Session One: June 17 - June 28
| Session Two: July 08 - July 19
Eligibility: Students in grades 10-11 at the time of application
Stanford’s Pre-College Summer Institute offers a dynamic online experience for high school students eager to explore challenging courses that provide in-depth and interactive engagement with advanced topics. With a focus on both skill enhancement and knowledge growth, the program cultivates an atmosphere that promotes innovation and collaborative learning.
The Computer Science track in this program has over 10 courses to choose from. Each of these courses explore different subject areas and aspects of Computer Science. Some of the available areas of study include Game Design, Artificial Intelligence, Introduction to C++, and Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
6. Futures: Machine Learning Algorithms by UC San Diego Extended Studies
Location: Virtual
Cost: $350 per course
Application Deadline: TBA
Dates: TBD
Eligibility: High school students.
UC San Diego Extended Studies provides a fully online Machine Learning program tailored for high school students. The curriculum consists of three sequential courses, starting with Python and Mathematics for Machine Learning, progressing to Machine Learning Algorithms, and concluding with Deep Neural Networks.
The initial course equips students with essential mathematics and programming skills for implementing and analyzing both foundational and advanced Machine Learning algorithms. The second course dives into widely used Machine Learning algorithms for supervised and unsupervised learning models. In the final course, focused on Deep Neural Networks, students explore Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and are tasked with building a Deep Neural Network (DNN) framework from scratch, applying it to tasks like classification and recommendation systems.
7. Stanford’s A14ALL
Location: Virtual
Cost: $4,000 (Financial aid is available)
Application Deadline: March 20
Dates: July 8 - 26
Eligibility: Current 9th-grade students
Stanford’s AI4ALL is a 3-week online program that immerses students in AI through a combination of lectures, hands-on research projects, and mentoring activities. Participants get to engage with industry professionals and learn about cutting-edge ideas about how AI can be used to address challenges in various fields.
By working in the Stanford AI Lab, you get practical, hands-on experience with relevant research projects. While the program is open to all grade 9 students, some of the preferred characteristics in applicants include excellence in academics, a passion for STEM, outreach or volunteer experience, and demonstrated problem-solving and math skills.
8. Kode With Klossy
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Application Deadline: Interested students can join the program waitlist.
Dates: Each session lasts 2 weeks, running from June 3 to August 16.
Eligibility: Women and gender-expansive students, aged 13-18
Kode with Klossy is a 2-week free virtual coding-intensive camp for students of traditionally underrepresented genders in the STEM fields. This camp introduces students to the fundamentals of coding. The program curriculum covers topics like Web Development, wherein you learn how to build websites using three programming languages: JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. The Machine Learning course teaches you the foundations of artificial intelligence and machine learning with topics including algorithms, data sets, and natural language processing to train a chatbot using Python. Other subject areas covered during the camp include Data Science and Mobile Apps.
9. Google Summer of Code
Location: Virtual
Stipend: Students receive a stipend for their work. No amount has been specified.
Application Deadline: April 2
Dates: January 23 - November 17
Eligibility: Graduated high school seniors who are 18 years old or above
Google’s Summer of Code is a virtual program that offers graduated high school students the opportunity to be part of open-source projects and gain real-world, hands-on experience by working on a coding project for over 12 weeks with a source organization under the guidance of dedicated mentors.
The program aims to encourage participants to participate in open source software development, assist open source projects bring in new developers into their communities, give participants exposure to real-world open source software development scenarios, and Create more open source code for everyone.
10. Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Online Programs
Location: Virtual
Cost: LIVE courses: $550–$1,365; Individually Paced: $984–$1,499; Session-Based: $716–$2,127; Clubs: $191.
Application Deadline: January 5
Dates: Dates and duration vary depending on the type of course chosen
Eligibility: High school students
John Hopkins CTY’s Online Programs are designed to challenge academically advanced students and teach them concepts beyond the traditional classroom curriculum. This program is offered in three formats: session-based, individually paced, and live classes. Multiple courses are offered in different subject streams, such as Computer Science, Language Arts, Mathematics, and History.
In the Computer Science track, the curriculum spans a range of topics, including Scratch programming, advanced Java concepts, AP Computer Science, computer languages, and programming skills in various projects, including animation, game design, web design, and more.
11. Columbia University Academic Year Weekend Program
Location: Virtual
Cost: $2,810 per session
Application Deadline: December 5
Dates: (Spring) January 18 – March 23
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12
Columbia University’s Academic Year Weekend program offers a virtual learning experience across 10 weekends tailored for high school students. Participants can enroll in up to four courses, each conducted in two-hour sessions on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays. With more than 20 course options available, you have the flexibility to explore a wide range of subject areas. Classes are led by expert instructors in small groups, fostering individualized attention.
The program also includes virtual clubs, peer interactions, support from a Student Life Intern, and access to seminars, workshops, and lectures focused on college preparation. Technology-focused courses feature Data Science and Machine Learning 1 & 2, which cover practical applications of data science and machine learning, along with Python programming. Additional programming courses include Introduction to Python and Programming with Python. Upon completion, students receive a Columbia University Certification of Participation, enhancing their college applications.
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