When Northwestern students pack up their bags and store their belongings for the summer, the dorms empty and the campus gets quiet, but not completely. Here’s a rundown of what you’re missing (or not) over the summer at Northwestern.
Cherubs
Those teenagers running around in the mornings with yoga mats strapped to their backs? No, they’re not from Northwestern boot camp or a yoga retreat. They’re theater Cherubs with the National High School Institute. Northwestern hosts summer classes for high school seniors in theater, journalism, film and video, speech, music and debate. Eryn Rogers, a former journalism Cherub and current Medill freshman, got a taste of the academic life, but with a curfew and a relatively small group of peers. Cherubs “wasn’t the same socially as Northwestern.”
Summer Session
Even though school is out, plenty of Northwestern undergrads decide to spend the summer in Evanston taking classes. “Summer is a great time to go to the beach and there are tons of opportunities to go to Chicago,” says Aaron Jacobowitz, a Weinberg junior who spent last summer living in a house on the corner of Sherman and Noyes. But be prepared to bump into unfamiliar high schoolers and aspiring female lacrosse stars more often than friends and professors, and for the campus to feel weirdly quiet.
Summer Sport Camps
Whatever your sport, you will most likely find a Northwestern summer camp that coaches it. Northwestern’s athletic facilities are chock-full of young athletes ready to bask in Northwestern’s athletic glory. There are both day and residential camps. Some sports, including football, even offer camps under the instruction of Northwestern’s head coach.
Center for Talent Development
For kids more comfortable in the laboratory than on the athletic fields, the university sponsors the Center for Talent Development, a summer program for kids preschool through 12th grade. According to their Web site, it’s a place where “it’s hip to be smart.” Campers take classes with teachers selected specifically for the program, and a large percentage of the older students live on campus. It almost reminds you of Northwestern during the other nine months of the year.
Band Camp
If you get to school a couple weeks early and live on north campus, you’ll probably see the Northwestern University Marching Band convening for “band camp.” The program is an opportunity for the members to train and learn the marching ropes, get to know each other and learn some of the “history and traditions of one of the oldest marching bands in the country,” according to the marching band Web site.