Our 2020 summer program of Great Books Online is in the history books and our students' feedback is absolutely inspiring!

Hear what our campers and parents say about Great Books Online's unquie live class learning style and why it is a stand out program for literary exploration, writer's workshops, critical thinking, and civil discourse skills. 

Here are their responses to the question: What would you tell a student interested in the Great Books Summer Program?

"Made my brain start churning and chugging after a long quarantine of sitting around."

"I learned how to be a better public speaker, how to better articulate my own thoughts in an effective way, and generally, how to be more comfortable sharing my own opinions while still valuing others’ views." —Sebastian from D.C.

For Sebastian of Washington, D.C., Great Books is a place where his creativity flourishes. In fact, the talented 15-year-old was just given a Silver Key Award in the 2020 DC Metro Scholastic Writing Awards competition. He won the award for his short story, The No. 3 Bus, which he wrote during Great Books Writer’s Workshop at Amherst College last summer.

“Great Books taught me greater life lessons than I could have ever expected in a week. Being on a beautiful campus and taking the enriching literature classes there gave me a taste of what’s waiting after high school.” – Evelyn from PA

Evelyn from Pennsylvania shares her first experience at Great Books this past summer, attending our Writer’s Workshop. The high school junior attended this program for burgeoning writers to hone their literary craft with students from around the world .

What they did on their summer vacation: At the Great Books program at Amherst College, reading is a joy, not a chore

At first glance, it looked like a scene from a typical day at Amherst College: about 100 students in a lecture hall, on tiered seating on three sides of the room, notebooks and digital devices like iPads at hand, while a professor stood in the well of the room, looking up at some of the young people seated above him.

The subject matter seemed a serious one. Discussion revolved at first around “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s seminal anti-slavery novel that became a bestseller in the 1850s as the United States moved ever closer to civil war. “That was a time of growing division,” the professor said. “How different is our country today?”

In this case, though, it was early July, and the professor, Ilan Stavans, was wearing shorts and no shoes; as for the students, they looked a little young to be in college. They were, in fact, high school students, from their mid-to-late teens and from across the country and overseas, who had come to Amherst to do something not usually associated with summer camps: read.

"Great Books was instrumental in helping me achieve the confidence that has guided me on my life path thus far." -  Leigh from FL 

Leigh is an enthusiastic Great Books' alumna who attended our Amherst College program for two weeks each summer for six years. Today, she is a student at Duke University School of Law. Leigh offered to share her perspective on Great Books and its impact on her life journey.

Live the literature! Great Book's Oxford University program takes students on an adventure-filled journey through English literature. Each morning begins with university-style seminars. reading classic texts, engaging in deep conversations and debate while honing critical thinking skills. Afternoons are spent exploring the bookish treasures found throughout Oxford. Two days are spent heading out of town to visit key points of interest in the English countryside. 

Great Books and Big Ideas. It’s both the driving philosophy and founding principle on which the Great Books Summer Program was founded more than 17 years ago.

Meet UChicago students Zak Lutz and Dan Ackerman, our tag-team duo for a special double issue of the Nerd of the Month! Need any reassurance of their collective nerdiness? Take a peek at question #8, where they both cite the UChicago library as their favorite aspect of university life.

Eve taught a class on rare books and manuscripts for Great Books in the summer of 2015. They looked at some medieval manuscripts and early printed books at Amherst College Special Collections, and had a “traveling scriptorium” day where they practiced writing with a quill pen and parchment.