Computer Science Opportunities: Where to Start
Computer science opportunities for high schoolers range widely: some are competitive research programs, some are project-based courses, some are hackathon-style competitions, and a few are internships. They're not interchangeable, so it's worth knowing which kind you're looking at before you apply.
Everything below is tagged Computer Science in Pathfind's verified opportunity database, spanning research, internships, competitions, and structured programs — not just one flavor of "CS program."
If you're also interested in data science, AI, or robotics specifically, those are tracked as separate interests on Pathfind since the application pools and skill expectations differ.
We found 71 verified matches below. Want the full list instead? See all Computer Science Opportunities.
Congressional App Challenge
Build an original app for any platform and compete against peers in your congressional district. Winning apps are exhibited in the U.S. Capitol.
NASA TechRise Student Challenge
School teams design an experiment that NASA flies on a high-altitude test vehicle in summer 2027. A teacher or school employee submits the team's proposal, and 60 winning teams are chosen.
Regeneron Science Talent Search
The nation's oldest and most prestigious science research competition for seniors, judging original independent research. Top awards exceed $250,000.
PRIMES-USA
Year-long original research project in mathematics, pairing sophomores and juniors nationwide with an MIT researcher and completed remotely. No tuition or fee.
Research Science Institute
Six-week research program on MIT's campus pairing juniors with a mentor for original STEM research, capped by a formal presentation. Free, including room and board; seniors are not eligible.
GTRI High School Summer Internship
Five-week paid summer internship for Georgia high schoolers (Georgia residents only, 16+ by April 2027) working on real STEM research projects — robotics, drones, radar physics, piezoelectric systems — with GTRI engineers and scientists. Runs June 14–July 23, up to 24 hrs/week; no housing provided.
MIT THINK Scholars Program
Propose a STEM research or engineering project you haven't built yet; finalists get up to $1,000 in funding, weekly MIT mentorship, and an all-expenses-paid trip to MIT. Free to apply, solo or in pairs.
Lockheed Martin High School Internship Program
Nine-plus week paid internship working alongside aerospace and defense engineers on real projects at a Lockheed Martin site (Denver, Sunnyvale, Cape Canaveral, King of Prussia, Huntsville, or Herndon), with mentoring, workshops, and networking events. Must be 16+, live within commuting distance of a site, and not a graduating senior.
CTY Summer Programs
In-person and online summer academic courses for students who qualify through above-grade-level testing. Tuition-based, with financial aid available.
USA/North America AI Olympiad
Multi-round AI competition with a February first round of non-coding and Colab coding tasks, an invitational second round, and a June camp that selects Team USA. Exams are proctored at your school or a test site.
SHTEM Summer Internships
Eight-week in-person Stanford research internship on interdisciplinary projects spanning information theory, machine learning, and the humanities. Unpaid with a $95 application fee; you arrange your own housing and transport.
CMU CS Scholars
Fully funded four-week residential computer science program at Carnegie Mellon for 10th graders. Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and documentation of financial need is required to apply.
CMU AI Scholars
Fully funded four-week residential AI program at Carnegie Mellon for 11th graders, with research projects and faculty lectures. Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and documentation of financial need is required to apply.
COSMOS
Four-week residential program at a UC campus. Students join a research cluster — robotics, AI, marine science, and more — alongside university faculty.
Stanford AI4ALL
Two-week AI program covering computer vision, robotics, medical AI, NLP, and ethics with graduate-student mentorship, online in June or residential in July. Open only to 9th graders; tuition is steep but need-based aid exists.
Davidson Fellows
Scholarship competition awarding $25,000 to $100,000 to students 18 or younger for a significant, original piece of work in science, technology, math, literature, music, or philosophy. No fee to apply.
MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge
Teams of three to five get a single 14-hour window to build and write up a mathematical model of a real-world problem, competing for over $100,000 in scholarships. Free, but a teacher must register the team.
Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes
On-campus and online summer courses at Stanford open to any qualifying student, not just those enrolled at Stanford OHS. Tuition-based with need-based financial aid.
Kode With Klossy Summer Camp
Free two-week coding camp for girls and gender-expansive teens, covering web development, machine learning, or mobile app design. No experience required.
Experiences in Research
Paid six-week internship ($500/week) working about 30-35 hours a week with Berkeley Lab scientists on real projects in data science, coding, or experimentation. Northern California students who turn 16 by mid-June, with priority near the Berkeley site.
Academic Talent Development Program
Summer enrichment courses at UC Berkeley across the sciences, math, and humanities. Costs several hundred to about $1,250 per course, with a Pathway Scholarship for financial need.
AI4ALL Summer Internship
Ten-week internship at UCSF Mission Bay working with faculty on biomedical research using data science and AI. Restricted to SFUSD juniors taking AP Statistics or AP Computer Science; unpaid and you commute daily.
Beaver Works Summer Institute
Four-week project-based summer program at MIT in AI, autonomous racing, radar, and satellites. Admission requires finishing a free online prerequisite course that opens in winter; tuition is free under $200,000 family income.
Pathways
Free, self-paced seven-week virtual program for girls and non-binary students exploring AI, cybersecurity, data science, game design, or web development, with mentor check-ins along the way. Replaced the flagship Summer Immersion Program, which ended after its 2025 cohort.
Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair
The world's largest pre-college science fair. You qualify by winning at an affiliated regional or state fair, not by applying directly.
Technovation Girls
Girls and gender-expansive students build a mobile app or AI project addressing a community problem with a volunteer mentor, then submit code, a demo, and a business pitch. Free, and you can register without a school program.
INSIGHT
All-expenses-paid, multi-day program at Jane Street's New York office introducing women, transgender, and gender-expansive juniors and seniors to quantitative trading and software engineering. No finance background required.
High School Terminal
Free, virtual, round-robin team coding competition where students build algorithms for finance and data-driven problems, with cash prizes and Citadel recruiting exposure.
Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program
Eight-week summer research internship placing students in a Mason faculty lab. Remote, hybrid and in-person wet-lab placements are offered; wet-lab placements require you to be 16 by the start date, the others 15.
AI Foundations & CS Discoveries
Free, self-paced computer science and AI courses with no application or deadline. Code.org rebranded to CodeAI in 2026 as it shifted focus from coding toward AI literacy.
AI Scholars & AI Fellowship
Online AI courses over Zoom — a 25-hour group program in Python, neural networks, and AI ethics, or a mentored individual research fellowship. Both charge significant tuition, with need-based aid up to 100%.
AI Scholars Program
Ten-session live online AI course taught by graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and similar schools, ending in a social-impact project. Tuition is $1,400 with payment plans; admission is rolling year-round.
AI4ALL Open Learning
Free, self-paced online curriculum introducing artificial intelligence through projects on topics like computer vision and data bias. AI4ALL has paused all of its high school programming, so this is kept for reference only.
Amazon Future Engineer
Collection of free computer science courses, virtual field trips, and career-exploration content for students and teachers, including introductory coding and cloud computing material.
Aspirations in Computing Award
Recognition program for students who are women, genderqueer, or non-binary with an interest in computing, awarded on the basis of technical projects, leadership, and community. Winners join a national community with internship and scholarship connections.
Beaver Works Summer Institute
Four-week, project-based STEM summer program at MIT. Students complete an online prerequisite course, then take on an intensive team project in autonomy, robotics, AI, or quantum computing. No tuition.
Code in Place
Free online course that teaches the first half of Stanford's intro Python class (CS106A) to beginners. Each group of 10 students gets a volunteer teacher. Sessions run in cohorts, so check the site for the next one.
Computer History Museum Teen Volunteer Interns
Students in grades 9 to 12 research technology history and run tours and hands-on activities for young visitors at the museum in Mountain View.
Cooper Union Summer STEM
Three- or six-week college-level engineering and computer science classes at Cooper Union in New York City. Financial aid is available, with priority for NYC residents. Applications for 2027 open December 11, 2026.
CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science
Harvard's free, self-paced introduction to computer science, covering abstraction, algorithms, data structures, and web development in C, Python, SQL, and JavaScript. No formal application and no cost for the online course.
CyberPatriot
National youth cyber defense competition where school and community teams work as IT professionals to secure simulated networks across online rounds. Teams register through an adult coach.
eCYBERMISSION
Free virtual STEM competition for teams in grades 6–9. Teams identify a problem in their own community, work through the scientific or engineering method, and compete for state, regional and national awards.
Elements of AI
Free online introduction to artificial intelligence that needs no coding experience. It covers what AI can and can't do and how to start building simple AI methods. Start any time.
ExploraVision
Team competition in which students pick a current technology, research how it works, and project how it could look twenty years from now — submitting a written description and a set of web pages.
FIRST Robotics Competition
Teams get a common kit of parts and about six weeks to build an industrial-size robot for the season's game. You join through a school or community team rather than applying individually; the team pays the season fee.
FIRST Tech Challenge
Design, build, and program a smaller reusable robot for the annual game — the 2026-27 season game is BIOBUZZ. Join through a registered school or community team.
Genesys Works Bay Area
Free eight-week summer technical and professional training followed by a paid, year-long corporate internship during senior year. Open to students from partner high schools; interns earn roughly $10,000-$13,000 over the year.
Hack Club
Free network of student-run coding clubs plus open online programs, workshops, and community events. Students can join an existing club or start their own with Hack Club's tools.
High School Research Academy
Five-week non-residential research experience embedded in a UT Austin lab, at roughly 15–25 hours a week. Open to Texas residents who will be rising sophomores, juniors or seniors, with preference for juniors and seniors. The 2027 program runs June 7 to July 14. Tuition is $4,500, and a limited number of need-based scholarships may be available. The 2027 application opens in mid-January, with a deadline in March.
IBM SkillsBuild for High School Students
Free self-paced online courses on AI literacy, ethics of generative AI, and other tech skills for students ages 13 to 18. Start any time.
Intensive Immersion Program
Free 15-month mentorship and technical-training program in Oakland for Black male high schoolers, combining two 7-week summer sessions with year-round coding, entrepreneurship, and leadership training. No prior coding experience required.
Lumiere Research Scholar Program
Paid, fully online 1-on-1 research mentorship pairing a student with a PhD mentor over about 12 weeks to produce an independent research paper in a topic of their choosing. Need-based aid is available.
MITES Summer
Six-week residential academic enrichment program at MIT for rising seniors, with rigorous coursework in engineering, science, and humanities. Free of charge, including housing and meals.
NASA Internships (STEM Gateway)
NASA's official internship portal lists paid and unpaid opportunities at NASA centers and in virtual projects, with high school eligibility varying by session. Students apply through the portal and must be U.S. citizens.
National Cyber League
Seasonal cybersecurity competition with individual and team games, plus a practice gym, where players solve challenges in open-source intelligence, cryptography, and network traffic analysis.
Next Generation STEM Internship Program
Seven to ten weeks on site at Oak Ridge working alongside research and professional staff on a STEM project. Open to rising juniors and seniors and to recent graduates who have not yet enrolled in a degree programme.
NIST Summer High School Intern Program (SHIP)
Seven-week unpaid research internship with NIST scientists. You must be a U.S. citizen with at least a 3.0 unweighted GPA.
picoCTF
Free cybersecurity capture-the-flag competition and year-round practice platform built by Carnegie Mellon for middle and high school students, covering cryptography, forensics, and web exploitation.
Polygence Core Program
Paid, online 1-on-1 mentorship pairing a student with an expert to complete a self-chosen research project, paper, or app over roughly 10 sessions. Need-based aid is available.
Pre-College Scholars
Enroll in real UC Berkeley lower-division courses for college credit over a 6- or 8-week summer session, as a commuter or in the residential track.
Project Euler
Free archive of several hundred mathematics and programming problems of increasing difficulty, solved by writing code. Progress is tracked through a free account.
Summer Academy for Math and Science
Residential summer academy at Carnegie Mellon for rising seniors from groups historically underrepresented in STEM, building calculus, physics, and programming foundations with college application support. No tuition.
TAG-Ed High School Summer Internship
Eight-week summer STEM internship in Georgia where interns are matched with host companies and work in pairs on a defined project. Paid and unpaid placements exist, and students must be 17 by June 1 and able to work in the U.S.
The Junior Academy
Free online program where you join an international team and work with STEM experts on real-world challenges.
UCSC Scholar Immersion Program (SIP)
Summer research with UC Santa Cruz mentors on open-ended projects. The SIP 2027 application fee is $68, and fee waivers are available.
USA Computing Olympiad
Four free online programming contests per season, open to any pre-college student and split into four divisions from Bronze to Platinum. Registration is free and rolling.
USACO Guide
Free, community-maintained practice curriculum for competitive programming, organized by topic and difficulty with curated practice problems and an online judge for submitting and checking answers.
VEX Robotics Competition
Season-long engineering competition where teams build and program a robot for a new game, advancing from local events to regional, national, and world championships.
VEX V5 Robotics Competition
Two-team alliances compete with V5 robots in the 2026-27 game Override, from local fall tournaments through the spring World Championship. You compete as part of a registered team.
Wharton High School Data Science Competition
Free sports analytics contest from Wharton. You use real data to answer a sports question.
Women's Technology Program
Four-week summer program at MIT for rising 11th-grade students who are girls or gender-expansive, combining computer science, electrical engineering, or mechanical engineering classes with hands-on labs. No tuition.