GetSET (SWE Santa Clara Valley)
A four-year outreach program of the Santa Clara Valley Society of Women Engineers in which 25 incoming high school freshmen are selected annually to attend an intensive week-long summer program with over 50 hands-on engineering and science workshops led by volunteer women engineers, returning each summer through senior year.
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California MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement)
A year-round college and career prep program, headquartered in Oakland since its 1970 founding at Oakland Technical High School, that serves over 350 middle and high schools statewide with engineering-focused enrichment activities that feed into MESA's community college and university tracks and the National Engineering Design Competition.
Summer Springboard: Fundamentals of Engineering at UC Berkeley
A two-week immersive pre-college program held on the UC Berkeley campus where high schoolers tackle hands-on mechanical, structural, civil, and biomedical engineering design challenges, including building a prosthetic limb and a scale-model building to code and budget, plus tours of Tesla Fremont Factory and Google HQ.
EPICS High
A national engineering-design service-learning program in which high school teams partner with schools or nonprofit organizations to identify community needs and design and deliver real engineering solutions, applying human-centered design across themes of community development, education, health, and sustainability.
Fire Hacks 2026
A free one-day in-person hackathon for high school students hosted by nonprofit CodeStarters at Zoho HQ in Pleasanton, CA, featuring a dedicated AI Track where students build AI apps, agents, and copilots with mentor support.
SWE Berkeley High School Engineering Program (HSEP)
Free Saturday program at UC Berkeley with SWE mentors, 10-week fall/spring term.
Cal Day at the Archaeological Research Facility (UC Berkeley)
An annual free open-house event where UC Berkeley's Archaeological Research Facility hosts lectures, panel discussions, lab tours, and hands-on activities (ceramic reconstruction, rock art painting, paleoethnobotany, career talks) for prospective students, families, and the community.