Berkeley Coding Academy Summers

Berkeley Coding Academy Summers focuses on data science and AI through hands-on coding lessons, lecture time, cohort time, bonus time, and data projects. The program includes collaborative periods of instruction where students build and evaluate machine learning models, create data visualizations, conduct original research, give presentations, and provide feedback. Lectures are run as engaging coding experiences, and students create their own coding notebooks while also receiving annotated lecture notebooks stored in their Google Drives.

• Schedule: Data Science - The AI Journey from July 6 – 31, 2026, with sessions completed within 3 weeks

Berkeley Coding Academy Summers offers the award-winning summer program Data Science - The AI Journey, which has an original curriculum that has been continuously revised for over 6 years. The curriculum includes hundreds of 4K videos re-recorded in 2025, coding notebooks, coding guides, project guides, slides, and problem sets. The program trains students to use NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn, Sklearn, and Keras to analyze big data and make predictions using machine learning models, with a code-first emphasis on machine learning as the code behind AI. Cohorts average 6 students of similar age and coding background, with fundamentals reinforced in beginning cohorts and more depth in advanced cohorts, and 1-1 support is provided. Small cohorts allow students and staff to know each other on a first-name basis, and bonus time gives students chances to connect and have fun outside of coding. BCA students have given lecture time a mean rating of 4.7/5, cohort time 4.9/5, and bonus time 4.8/5 over six years. All data projects use real datasets and original research, and these projects are widely used for college applications and science fairs. BCA graduates have won science fairs, majored in Data Science, earned Data Science internships, and started AI clubs, and graduates are described as well-prepared to navigate, analyze, and build AI to make a positive difference in the world. The program works within the larger data science community to build new connections.

Parent and student feedback includes comments that a student “REALLY enjoyed the hands-on coding lessons” and that the teaching style allowed her to explore on her own and understand the purpose of the code. Students report that they “love every single activity,” that they learned more in this class than in an entire semester of a high school coding class, that they liked “how deep” the program went and the “code-first approach,” and that they were surprised by how much was covered in only 3 weeks.

Last updated March 22, 2026.