About

The Environmental Studies Summer Youth Institute (ESSYI) at Hobart and William Smith Colleges is a two-week residential program for rising high school juniors and seniors who are serious about environmental issues. Held July 12–25, 2026, on HWS's campus in Geneva, New York, ESSYI immerses 50 students in a college-level, interdisciplinary introduction to environmental studies taught by 18–20 HWS faculty members spanning biology, geoscience, philosophy, economics, political science, and other departments. The program is credit-bearing: students who complete it earn one official HWS course credit equivalent to four semester hours, with an HWS transcript available upon request.

The curriculum is deliberately multi-perspectival. Students examine environmental problems through scientific, social, economic, philosophical, ethical, and political lenses in rapid succession — encountering a different faculty member and disciplinary framework in each session. Field work is central to the experience: students travel into the Adirondack region for hands-on environmental observation and documentation, and take a research vessel onto Seneca Lake for an aquatic biology session. A larger collaborative group project runs throughout the program. HWS college students serve as residential and teaching assistants, creating a near-peer mentorship layer alongside the faculty.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis; the program is capped at 50 students. No acceptance rate is published but the rolling cap and the program's reputation within environmental education make early application advisable. Tuition is $3,000, which covers the residential program.

For a student with genuine environmental interests — not simply environmental curiosity — ESSYI offers something most summer programs don't: a full college credit, taught by a real faculty across disciplines, with serious field work built in.