You’ve heard us plug time and time again the neighborhood’s position as New York City’s College Town, with 11 colleges and 60,000 students attending school here. But did you know that Downtown Brooklyn’s colleges also offer a number of year-round pre-college programs? More than 40 offerings in all, in fact, focusing on grades K-12, with primary emphasis on high schoolers.
See below for a full list of programs and contact information to learn more:
- Collective Source Partnership: A career seminar/mentorship program with high school juniors and seniors who are average (B and C) performers. Berkeley College offers free space on its campus, facilitates a career exploration workshop, and provides lunch for all of their visits. For more information, contact Conrad Walker at crw@berkeleycollege.edu.
- Summer Youth Employment Program: Berkeley College host interns every year through the Summer Youth Employment Program, which provides New York City youth between the ages of 14 and 24 with paid summer employment for up to six weeks in July and August. For more information, contact Conrad Walker at crw@berkeleycollege.edu.
- Motivating Youth Through Legal Education: MYLE is dedicated to helping youth from underserved communities to compete in debates, develop academic and presentation skills, and pursue a legal education. In association with Legal Outreach, a local not-for-profit organization, MYLE members coach local high school students. The high school students compete in four constitutional law debates throughout the year and law students join attorney mentors in judging. For more information, contact Grace Pickering at gpickering@legaloutreach.org.
- Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice: The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice has partnered with Brooklyn Law School to fulfill its mission of engaging the city’s highest need public high school students through legal studies and debate. Brooklyn Law School students volunteer to coach students on college personal statements, allow a student to shadow them for “A Day in the Life,” act as a Supreme Court Justice for SLJ’s Moot Court Week, evaluate student portfolios, and mentor LGBTQ and allied students. For more information, contact Danielle Sorkin at Danielle.sorkin@brooklaw.edu.
- Advantage After School Program: Promotes development of entrepreneurial skills and offers alternative training courses and recreational activities for young people in Fort Greene. The Brooklyn Campus School of Education and other community groups assist in helping to integrate Middle School 113’s academic curriculum with less formal after-school learning experiences.
- Career Opportunities in Accounting Program: Sponsored by LIU Brooklyn's School of Business, Public Administration & Information Sciences in conjunction with the New York State Society of Public Accountants' Foundation for Accounting Education, COAP aims to encourage high school juniors to pursue careers in accounting. For more information, contact Linette Williams at linette.williams@liu.edu.
- Liberty Partnership Program: A college readiness program for high school students, LPP is comprised of an after-school program, school-based collaborations, Saturday program, and a summer program. LPP provides academic support, SAT Prep, discussion groups, field trips and project-based learning. LPP nurtures partnerships with the Arnold & Maria Schwartz College of Pharmacy, & Health Sciences, the School of Business, Public Administration and Information Services, Office of Admissions, University Health and Medical Services, the Bedford Stuyvesant YMCA, and the American Association of Blacks in Energy. For more information, contact Roland Robinson at roland.robinson@liu.edu.
- School of Education Future Teachers and School Counselors Program: This partnership with Lyons Community High School provides an introduction to college for high school seniors interested in becoming teachers or school counselors. LIU students in the teacher education and school counseling programs will mentor the Lyons Community H.S. seniors and help them with their school work and career planning. For more information, contact Charlotte Marchant at charlotte.marchant@liu.edu.
- Smart Scholars: The Smart Scholars Program at Long Island University/Boys & Girls High School College Academy provides outstanding high school students with the unique opportunity to become part of an innovative and rigorous learning community. The program stresses learning, achievement, and persistence all year round through specially designed supplemental services. For more information, contact Tyron Vereen at tyron.vereen@liu.edu.
- Science and Technology Entry Program: The program prepares high school students for college programs in science- or health-related fields. It provides instruction and developmental courses, SAT preparation, tutoring, counseling, college/university tours, and cultural trips. For more information, contact Oswald Cabrera at Oswaldo.cabrera@liu.edu.
- Summer Honors Institute @ LIU: This prestigious experiential program enables talented high school students to join their highly motivated peers from around the country in a weeklong immersion in a program of their choice. Programs are being offered at two amazing education destinations—one in the most exciting city in the world, NYC; the other set on Long Island’s beautiful North Shore, on a spectacular 307-acre campus. Please contact 516-299-2049 or email honorsinstitute@liu.edu.
New York City College of Technology (CUNY)
- Black Male Initiative: Offers several outreach programs including: (a) Let's Get Ready SAT prep for HS students; (b) Middle and High School Outreach to Urban Assembly School for Math and Science for Young Women, Pathways in Technology Early College High School, City Polytechnic High School, Science Skills Center High School, Westinghouse High School, and MS 394 Middle School – Mary McLeod Bethune Academy; (c) SIMBA tutoring for homeless students. For more information, contact Reginald Blake at rblake@citytech.cuny.edu.
- Bridging the Gap/Science Technology Entry Program: Aims to academically, socially, and vocationally bridge the gap to increase underrepresented and economically disadvantaged student success in middle school, high school, college and STEM, and the NYS licensed professions. Through partnerships with Department of Education, Let's Get Ready, City Tech Faculty, and C/STEP programs, provides college and career readiness coursework and activities for middle and high school students. For more information, contact Ivonne Barreras at ibarreras@citytech.cuny.edu.
- College Now: COLLEGE NOW is a pathway between high school and higher education and offers college credit-bearing coursework without tuition, book fees, or other costs to high school students. Classes meet after the regular high school day and/or on Saturday. Goals are to enable students to increase their awareness of the demands of higher education, prepare to enter post-secondary education without remediation, and facilitate a smooth transition between high school and college. For more information, contact Ivonne Barreras at ibarreras@citytech.cuny.edu.
- Early High School Programs: Enables students at either City Polytechnic High School of Engineering, Architecture and Technology or P-Tech to graduate in five years with both a high school diploma and a college associate degree. For more information, contact Sachie Mondesir at smondesir@citytech.cuny.edu (City Poly) or Carline Folkes at cfolkes@citytech.cuny.edu (P-Tech).
- High School Outreach: Consists of outreach to several high schools including City Poly High School, Grady High School, High School for Construction Trades and Architecture, Urban Assembly of Green, Law High School. The college also has several articulation agreements with local high schools. For more information, contact Pamela Brown at pbrown@citytech.cuny.edu.
- NSF Math Science Partnerships: The goal of the Bridge-to College Teaching Assistant Scholars (TAS) Pipeline Program is to prepare entering freshmen majoring in STEM for their first year of college by supporting them through collaborative and peer strategies. TASes participates in a two-week Summer Bridge Program where fundamental mathematics concepts and environmental mastery skills to be successful college students (i.e. time management, academic resources, study skills) are highlighted. For more information, contact Janet Liou-Mark at jliou-mark@citytech.cuny.edu.
- Robotics Competitions: Helps students from P-Tech High School and Brooklyn High School of Collaborative Studies to build FIRST Robotic Competition (FRC) robots in the Mechatronics Technology Center located in the Mechanical Engineering Technology department every year. Offers robotic training programmings (mechanical design, electronic design, and programming) on weekends for the high schools' and middle schools' FRC and FTC (FIRST Tech Chalange) teams. Brings the robots built by the college students to various local K-12 schools for demonstration and to promote STEM education. For more information, contact Andy Zhang at azhang@citytech.cuny.edu.
- Teacher Leader Quality Partnership: Designed to support teachers with professional development to enhance curriculum development, and best practices in math education. Helps teachers develop technology rich lessons plans, and to integrate literacy into these lesson plans, to ultimately develop a web-based curriculum that will positively impact student achievement. For more information, contact Ivonne Barreras at ibarreras@citytech.cuny.edu.
NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering
- Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering (ARISE): This selective program is for academically strong, current 10th and 11th grade New York City students with a demonstrated interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. The seven-week program includes: college level coursework, high level research experience in one of several the School of Engineering faculty labs, and mentoring in that placement by a graduate or postdoctoral student. In the coursework, students will be introduced to engineering concepts and principles, the scientific method and ethics, research practices, and lab safety. For more information visit: http://arise.poly.edu/
- Applying Mechatronics to Promote Science/Central Brooklyn Stem Initiative (AMPS/CBRI): Pairs teachers from Brooklyn public schools with graduate student fellows from the School of Engineering's engineering, chemical, and biomolecular science programs to design dynamic, hands-on classroom lessons in a variety of STEM disciplines. Graduate fellows co-teach in classrooms and coach robotics teams, spending about 10 hours a week in schools throughout the academic year. Currently in 14/15 schools, this program combines funding from the National Science Foundation, Brooklyn Community Foundation, and other supporters and serves nearly 1,500 students and 40 teachers. For more information, contact Vikram Kapila at vkapila@nyu.edu.
- Brooklyn Tech Summer Research Internship Program: Brooklyn Technical HS and the School of Engineering have a collaborative relationship to provide summer research internship and other STEM-related resources to students supported in part by the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Association. For more information, contact Joy Colelli at jc3760@nyu.edu.
- Code Liberation Web-Based Storytelling: Designed for women who want to publish original games that are accessible across a multitude of web-enabled devices, this set of classes shares different approaches to web-based game development. The program aims to inspire women to find their unique voices within the community by teaching not only game development, but also game design, art, and storytelling. During the course, students work with Twine and Construct 2 to create simple interactive games, then take a deeper dive into what is possible with 2D games in HTML5 using the Phaser framework. Attendees will come away from this workshop with new strategies to integrate into their game design process and functional prototypes. For more information, contact Phoenix Perry at phoenix@areyoudevoted.com.
- CrEST: The CrEST program emphasizes hands-on, lab-based demonstrations, experiments, and projects that offer important learning experiences related to circuitry, electronics, mechanical systems, physical computing, robotics, and other STEM disciplines. Designed by the School of Engineering's Center for K-12 STEM Education, the curriculum is adapted from courses taught at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) by Dustyn Roberts, a Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the School of Engineering. For more information visit: http://crest.poly.edu/
- Integrated Digital Media: This three-credit Web Design summer course teaches the fundamentals of web designing including HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which is the code structure of web pages; Cascading Style sheets(CSS); web page presentation; and JavaScript web page language. For more information, contact Joy Colelli at jc3760@nyu.edu.
- NYC First: With this national organization, the School of Engineering supports its robotics competitions throughout the five boroughs serving thousands of students and the mentors and teachers that work with young people on their teams. For more information, contact Ben Esner at ben.esner@nyu.edu.
- Precalculus: This four-credit summer pre-calculus course is designed to sharpen the skills needed for Algebra I and Algebra II, as well as teach the fundamentals of calculus. This course includes a comprehensive study in exponents, algebraic expressions, fractions, proportionality, reates of change, and more. For more information: http://www.poly.edu/highschoolsummer
- Research Experience for Teachers – Cybersecurity: Ten college faculty and twelve high school teachers from the metropolitan area will participate in a six-week research program in cybersecurity. During the first two-week of the program, teachers attend classes in cyber security covering topics in Data and File System Analysis, Encryption, and other topics. During the remaining portion, teams of teachers will be paired with a faculty member for a collaborative research experience. The goal of the program is for participants to integrate cyber security into their computer science curriculum and organize a team of high school students to participate in the National CSAW competition for high school students. For additional information go to: http://engineering.nyu.edu/cybersummer
- Research Experience for Teachers – Smarter: SMARTER is a unique project that provides a paid research opportunity to middle and high school teachers. Funded by the Division of Engineering Education and Centers of the National Science Foundation, under its Research Experience for Teachers Site program, SMARTER aims to enrich education in middle and high school classrooms by providing teachers with enhanced STEM educational content through a mechatronics research project and an entrepreneurship experience. During each of the three project years (2013—2015), 12 teachers will be selected to receive mentoring, engage in entrepreneurship activities, and conduct inquiry-based, hands-on, engineering research through six-week long summer workshops. For more information: http://mechatronics.poly.edu/smart/
- Science of Smart Cities/Introduction to Engineering and Design: Introduces middle school students to engineering, science, and technology that make cities more livable, efficient, sustainable and safer. Hands-on activities, demonstrations and experiments integrate STEM concepts, showing how those are applied through engineering and technology to the systems and infrastructure in cities today, and how they might be applied in cities in the future. Based on a custom curriculum designed by two School of Engineering and mathematics students and a student from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, this activity-based, engaging summer experience will teach the underlying scientific and engineering concepts and principles that will drive how cities meet challenges like energy use and transportation to create sustainable urban centers. For more information, contact Ben Esner at ben.esner@nyu.edu.
- Summer 2014 Cybersecurity Program for High School Young Women: This two-week program will introduce students to topics related to cybersecurity including steganography, computer architecture, tools for digital forensics, and more. For more information, contact Joy Colelli at jc3760@nyu.edu.
- Tech Kids Unlimited: Week-long classes for students aged 9 to 11 with modules ranging from “Make a Digital Game” to “Develop a Sound App” to “Learn Google Sketch-Up” to “3D Printing.” For more information, contact Ben Esner at ben.esner@nyu.edu.
- America Reads/Counts at Pratt: America Reads/Counts at Pratt has over 30 weekly tutoring sites and over 100 children who meet with Institute tutors to read, calculate, learn sign language, Braille, and foreign languages. All tutoring is free of charge to the parents of accepted children. For more information, contact Peggy Feagin at pwestbar@pratt.edu.
- Design Initiative for Community Empowerment: An after-school program that introduces high school students to design through studio work, field trips, visits from accomplished designers, portfolio development, and a final exhibition. Its goal is to create unique and stimulating educational experiences that prepare students for college-level classes and careers in design. For more information, contact Tara Kopp at dice@pratt.edu.
- Pratt Young Scholars: A multi-year, need based scholarship program providing art and design college preparation to motivated Brooklyn high school students. Those selected are entitled to three years of studio classes in the Department of Art and Design Education’s Youth Programs, as well as the Institute’s Pre-College Program. This scholarship program strives to provide students with the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to pursue advanced studies in art and design. For more information, contact Tara Kopp at scholars@pratt.edu.
- Pre-College Summer Program: Every summer, Pratt sponsors a college-level program for high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors at its Brooklyn campus. The program attracts about 400 students. It is an intensive immersion experience in art, design, architecture, or creative writing. For more information, contact Elizabeth Kisseleff at precollege@pratt.edu.
- Saturday Art School: Pratt Institute's Saturday Art School has been offering a broad range of classes for children ages 3–18 years old, reinforcing the belief that it is never too early or too late to develop creative potential. Classes meet for two hours each week for 10 weeks during the fall and spring semesters. Saturday Art School is a teaching laboratory; most classes are taught by art and design education students who are supervised by Pratt faculty. For more information, contact Tara Kopp at Saturday@pratt.edu.
- Science and Technology Entry Program: STEP is a Saturday Discovery Program that assists ninth through twelfth graders in Math, Science, Technology, and Architecture. The program offers students the opportunity to explore careers in these areas, visit two college campuses each year, and prepare and present reports on scientific exploration. Students participate in science fairs on a regional and statewide level. During the Academic year, students visit cultural, educational, and historic places of interest in New York City. For more information, contact Georgianna Glose at gglose@pratt.edu.
- Summer Design: Offers classes in a variety of disciplines for teens. The design process is central to all the classes, beginning with the identification of a problem, followed by research into potential solutions, the development of a plan, and the fabrication and presentation of a product. Reading, writing, public speaking, and critical thinking skills are integrated into all phases of this process. For more information, contact Tara Kopp at Saturday@pratt.edu.
- Youth Art, Design, and Architecture: Off-campus classes in Art, Design, Architecture and Urban Planning in partnership with public schools, charter schools, and/or social services agencies; classes are taught by Pratt students who are supervised by Pratt faculty. For more information, contact Aileen Wilson at awilson2@pratt.edu.
- After School Science Program: This free program is designed to use Brooklyn Bridge Park as a living laboratory, where students can observe science in nature and collect samples to then analyze in the new state-of-the-art laboratory at St Francis College. Each week a biology professor and/or guest teachers from St. Francis College and/or the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy will lead the program.
- Summer Science Academy: This is a free science enrichment program in which students conduct laboratory experiments and embark on field trips, including kayaking, water quality analysis, and sustainability studies in the Brooklyn Bridge Park, to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, American Museum of Natural History, the Prospect Park Zoo, the Norwalk Aquarium in Connecticut, and more. For more information, contact Kathleen Nolan at knolan@sfc.edu.
- ACS Chemistry Poster Contest: Provides students with an excellent opportunity to present the results of their research projects, develop presentation skills, and share their enthusiasm for science with their peers. At this event, 120 students come together to exhibit over 100 poster presentations. All research posters are judged by scientists working in both academia and private industry, and four student winners receive Barnes and Noble gift cards. For more information, contact Jill Rehmann at jrehmann@sjcny.edu.
- CSTUY: Designed by experienced high school computer science teachers with more than 40 years of experience to take students who never considered computer science and make them "Google Ready" by the time they finish high school. For more information, contact David Holtman at dholtzman@sjcny.edu.
- Digital Waves Youth Media Festival: The NewsHive@StJoe’s brings together high school and college students from New York City, Boston, and Portland, Maine, in order to create video reports framed around the major issues of this year’s mayoral contest, with the aim of drawing the attention of policymakers to the challenges that impact the lives of youth in the five boroughs. For more information, contact Ted Hamm at thamm@sjcny.edu.
- Summer Institute at St. Joseph’s College: The goal of the Institute is to provide each student with an enriching academic and social experience during their stay. Programs are designed to foster personal development through academic study and shared experience, and during each one-week session, students select one class. A broad array of courses that are unmatched in the metro area are offered so that each student will have a unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of themselves, their subject, and the world, and also make new friends that share their interests. For more information, contact Jill Rehmann at jrehmann@sjcny.edu.
- Youth Financial Literacy: This program is designed to teach high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors the basic information that they need to master the basics of personal finance as they approach adulthood. Done in partnership with the Brooklyn Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a slate of local banks, this program taught 50 high school students from New Utrecht and West Brooklyn High School how to open and manage a bank account, use a credit card, and apply for college and financial aid. For more information, contact Michael Banach at mbanach@sjcny.edu.
SOURCE: Downtown Brooklyn – Read entire story here.