Join the Yale community this summer to make and study art, history, and culture! Yale Pathways to Arts & Humanities Summer Scholars Program is a free, two-week academic program for New Haven and West Haven public high school students
Email yalepathways@yale.edu.
Pathways Summer Scholars is a free two-week summer arts and humanities-focused program for local high school students. Each summer, Yale faculty, graduate students, and staff come together to create a program designed to share Yale’s rich resources with New Haven students. Students take a variety of workshops where they examine the vast resources of the Beinecke, discover art and sculpture at the Yale University Art Gallery, explore the world of comics at the Yale Center for British Art, learn professional photographic techniques, study architectural sketching, write plays, and much more.
See what our Scholars did in this 2025 summer recap video!
Open to any New Haven, West Haven, or Orange (Amity) public school student currently in grades 9 - 11.
Complete online application by Tuesday, February 24, 2026. As part of the application, you will need to send your teacher the recommendation link.
Application links open in January.
Students must commit to all days of the program
Example of daily schedule:
9:00am - 9:30am Advisory Time
9:30am - 11:00am Morning Workshop: Portraiture and Figure Drawing
11:00am - 12:30pm Enrichment: Philosophy seminar
12:50pm - 1:50pm Lunch: Timothy Dwight Dining Hall
2:10pm - 3:40pm Afternoon Workshop: The Monsters Within: The Politics of the Gothic Short Story
3:45pm - 4:00pm Recap, Snack, and Dismissal
This course invites students to explore the evolving meaning of American patriotism from 1776 to today. Using the Unfurling the Flag: Reflections on American Patriotism exhibit as a primary learning lab, students will analyze artifacts, speeches, symbols, and stories that reflect both pride and protest in American history. Students will create a final creative project inspired by exhibit materials.
A creative approach to brainstorming, drafting, and revising your college essay. For rising seniors only.
Have you ever wondered how a piece of plywood transforms into a weathered brick wall or a polished marble floor? In this hands-on introductory course, you will step into the world of the scenic artist. This class is designed for absolute beginners - no prior painting experience is required, just a willingness to get a little messy!
From ancient civilizations through contemporary times, we have been some of our own favorite subjects in art. Portraiture and figure drawing are an important part of an artist’s technique, but artists have experimented with mediums, abstraction, costume, and body language to convey even deeper meaning. We will combine art making (photo, painting, sculpture, drawing) with object-oriented discussions, including visits to the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art, to understand the role of the portrait and what it can tell us.
The world is moving so fast, we forget to slow down and really see it: the glimmer in a new friend’s eye, the different hues painted by the sunset, the crack in the ground where a wildflower is making its home. In this workshop, you will learn how to make zines to slow down and honor the memories that make us feel alive, because there is beauty in the everyday!
In this workshop, we will dive deep into the paintings of John Constable at the Yale Center for British Art and strive to create our own practice of painting and drawing in the landscape. During our week, we will combine close looking at Constable’s original work in the collection with direct observation from nature. More than learning how to paint and draw, this workshop will be an invitation to see your world with a new perspective.
This playwriting workshop centers intentionality with the words we use creatively and critically. Students will write a short play, see their text performed by others, and use the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process to deconstruct what they saw, felt, and offer feedback in a generous and nuanced manner.
This workshop will lead students through the progression from the creation of a textile to its decoration and use. Students will get hands-on experience with various aspects of the textile arts, such as spinning, weaving, embroidery, dyeing, and mending. We will also take field trips to the Yale Farm to learn about indigo dyeing and to the Yale University Art Gallery to see textiles on display.
Join the Babylonian Collection this summer to investigate the mysteries of how objects from the ancient Middle East ended up all the way in New Haven, CT. Develop skills and knowledge in investigation, research, provenance, Middle Eastern history, and gain hands-on experience with museum objects thousands of years old!
This creative writing course explores the diverse literary representations of the monster– the vampire, zombie, and ghost– in gothic short stories across different cultures and communities (canonical American, African American, Latin American, & Filipino) to engage in societal critique against racism, colonialism, misogyny, ableism, and authoritarianism. Throughout this course, grounded in collective reading and group discussion, students will have the opportunity to write their own short stories centering on the following questions: What creates the monster, and why do we monstrify?
Each student in this course will develop their own expanded artistic practice, transforming a drawing into a sculptural object and then into a performance/installation. Through drawing, basic construction, and performance experiments, students will discover the relationships among images, objects, space, and the body/self. Guided by self-expression and play, students will explore the worlds they want to make and the stories they want to tell. In the process, students will build lifelong skills in visual composition, spatial thinking, embodied awareness, and the versatile use of materials.
Join us for an introduction to rhythm tap dance, a percussive vernacular art form pioneered by Black Americans. Students will learn about tap’s rich history (including how tap intertwines with the historical development of jazz and the American stage and screen, and how tap’s current thriving pop, hip-hop, and jazz scenes emerged) and will use their feet to express themselves musically through beats and melodies. Tap shoes will be given to students and no dance experience is required.
In this workshop, students will learn how to write a story with a beginning, middle, and end; a protagonist, conflict, and resolution. Each day we will investigate a different element of the storytelling craft– character, narrative, description, dialogue, and point of view. Sessions will include brief lectures on the craft of writing, hands-on exercises, and readings of successful work by professional writers.
This workshop aims to answer the question, what makes a good portrait? We will look closely at personal and public portraits and work on developing our own skills as portrait artists. Students will learn the basics of camera and light room use, and the techniques of portrait photography: composition, lighting, and gesture.
How do you make a plastic sword look like ancient steel, or a fresh loaf of bread that can survive a 100-show run? Welcome to the world of Stage Properties where, if it isn’t the set and it isn’t the actor, it’s probably a prop. This class is perfect for aspiring technicians, DIY enthusiasts, or actors who want to understand the “stuff” they carry on stage.
In this course, students will learn the observational skills to draw from life. We will practice warm-up sketching, live-drawing, and timed-drawing. The workshop will culminate in a collaborative group drawing that encourages experimentation, shared creativity, and unexpected outcomes.
In this workshop, students will learn the basic theories of economics and be able to apply this knowledge to public policy issues, as well as to their everyday lives. Sessions will include interactive lectures, games and activities, and policy discussions on relevant topics like cellphone use in schools.
In this workshop, we will explore the boundaries of this “American Children’s Literature” collection by considering how the experience of childhood in our society has evolved and what American perspectives and voices have been included– or excluded– in shaping the collection. Students will get first-hand curatorial experience by perusing book catalogues and meeting with book dealers to learn about the book trade. In the final session, students will prepare their “pitch” for a book they will advocate should be added to the collection and the class will decide which book will be purchased as a permanent addition to the Beinecke collection.
This workshop will examine the criminal justice system, focusing on capital punishment, wrongful convictions, and the meaning of the Constitutional right to a fair trial. This is a discussion-based workshop focusing on actual legal cases and factual hypotheticals. By the end of the workshop, students will possess a better understanding of the criminal justice system and its ethical considerations, as well as an appreciation for the manner in which the law does not always meet society’s expectations of fairness and justice.
In this workshop, we will explore how interior design principles and architecture shape the way we experience space, movement, and community. We will create miniature rooms or imagined spaces and develop narratives from the perspective of someone who inhabits the space. By combining design, construction, and storytelling, this workshop invites students to rethink what spaces can be, how they are used, and how they shape the ways we live together.
In this workshop, participants investigate historical maps, photographs, and other documents to explore the changing landscape of Greater New Haven. As they learn how the region’s urban environment has transformed, they practice applying that knowledge to imagine its future. We will end with a walking tour of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail and a discussion of how to maximize the path’s value to Greater New Haven.
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