6 - 19 July 2025
2 Weeks

The Certificate Programme for Cognita Students

- Artificial Intelligence
- Economics & Management
- English Literature & Art History
- Politics, Philosophy & Law
- Medicine & Natural Sciences

The Worcester College Summer Oxford Certificate Program is more than an academic experience; it's an opportunity for Cognita students to connect with peers from around the globe, strengthening their sense of belonging within Cognita’s diverse international community. Cognita, a family of over 100 schools across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, brings together students with varied cultural backgrounds and perspectives. This program offers a chance for students to meet face-to-face, building friendships and networks that span continents.
As they come together in the historic and inspiring setting of Worcester College, students have the chance to learn alongside like-minded individuals who share their commitment to personal growth and academic excellence. Through group activities, seminars, and social events, students engage in meaningful learning and build lasting connections with Cognita peers who may one day be classmates, colleagues, or collaborators, helping them thrive in a rapidly evolving world.
For a trailer that includes testimony from previous programme participants, watch: https://youtu.be/oe-yfWAIxhs

What to expect from the academic programme?

All students will choose between five dynamic courses:

Artificial Intelligence and the World of Python Computing

During the course students follow a varied curriculum exploring several aspects of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. A relatively new discipline, Computer Science has a rich history with backgrounds spanning both Mathematics and Engineering science. Subject areas include but are not limited to: big data, object orientation principles, relational databases, automata theory, and graphs theory.
Covering the theory of computer science, students will cover topics such as Boolean logic, automata theory, graph theory, and complexity. These topics form the foundations to computer science, and its mathematical background.
Students will also focus on programming, learning object orientation, as well as software engineering patterns. While the content will have a focus on Python, we will also look at a wide range of other programming languages; JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and SQL.
In the classes on artificial intelligence we consider the topics of agents, rationality, optimisation, as well as linear regression and machine learning. These topics will rely heavily on both the theoretical topics and Python programming topics.
In combination with the topics above, students will participate in a group exercise to compete as a cohort to solve a optimisation problem with artificial intelligence methods. To use artificial intelligence is critical, as there are more solutions to this particular problem, then there are atoms in the solar system.

Economics & Business Management

This combined course will begin by offering an engaging and beginner-friendly introduction to
economics and the economy. By the end of the first week, students will understand how markets can be a powerful force in shaping the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. By the same token, they will understand the limits (and failures) of markets and the role of public policy, with applications to real-world societal challenges like climate change and inequality. Students will first be introduced to core economic concepts such as demand and supply, market equilibrium, game theory, competition, and trade. Applications of these concepts will illustrate how economic behaviour in a variety of contexts (e.g., consumption choice, job search, financial decisions, product innovation) can be explained by individuals and firms responding to economic incentives – for better or worse. Students will then learn how the interaction of economic actors in markets (i.e., households and firms, workers
and employers, banks and borrowers) determines aggregate, population-level outcomes like economic growth, technological progress, unemployment rates, income inequality, inflation, and environmental degradation. This course will also touch upon ways that public policy influences these outcomes through regulation as well as fiscal and monetary policy.
From this economic background, participants will receive an introduction to the study of management and behaviour in the workplace. An important theme in this module is that people’s behaviour at work is a result of their individual personalities, the organisational context, and the complex interplay between these two factors. Drawing from theory and research on social psychology and sociology, we will examine topics at the individual level (e.g., personality, job attitudes, motivation), the group level (teams, leadership, power, social networks), and the organizational level (e.g. organisational culture and change), and consider how they are interrelated.
The course will close with a business plan competition, where all participants will produce their own entrepreneurial start up business plan.

English Literature & Art History

This course combines not only the study of the great works of English Literature with some of finest examples of painting, sculpture and architecture in the world, but will also involve classes on the professional use of such knowledge today.

In the Art History classes, students will engage with many of the greatest works in the history of art, from the ancient past through to the birth of modern art. The outstanding collections of Oxford University, including the Ashmolean, the Christ Church Picture Gallery, and the Pitt Rivers Museum, as well as the architecture of Oxford itself, will allow first hand contact with the most influential ideas, artists, and pieces that have shaped the course of art and culture throughout the centuries. The world of art business, including art dealership, valuation, auctions, and art law, will give a practical dimension to the course, allowing students to understand the intersection of the art market and art appreciation."

Alongside this, students will be introduced to seminal works of English literature, from the medieval to the modern period, in prose, poetry and drama. Oxford has been a home to many great writers and inspired famous novels and poems; students will be able to read these in the context in which they were written and explore the city through a literary lens. We will also consider the role of literature and literary discourse in society today and explore whether social media is hindering or helping literature as an art and entertainment form.

Students will have the opportunity to produce a final project, presented to their peers, which will explore how visual and literary art can be placed in dialogue - and appreciated more fully - together.

Politics, Philosophy and Law

In this course, participants will gain theoretical knowledge and practical expertise on these three, core disciplines that underpin the societies in which we live. Beginning with Philosophy, participants will cover the ancient wisdom of Plato and Aristotle, the great medieval tradition of Anselm and Aquinas, and cover modern thinkers such as Kant, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel and Rawls. Key questions include what it is to be a human being? What does it mean to make a good (or bad) decision? What is the goal of my life and how can I be happy? What does it mean that man is reasonable, and free?
Philosophy gives answers to the big questions of life. Through encountering the ideas of these great minds of history, students will learn how to apply that wisdom to modern problems and challenges. The course will include lectures, reading, and discussion and open the world of philosophy to the participants.
Students will then move into Politics, where they will attempt to govern their own country, using applied political theory to co-author a constitution for the fictitious Somewhereland. Participants will use their newfound theoretical knowledge to identify a system of government which meets the needs of their assigned citizen profiles. Furthermore, students will begin to explore the exigencies of international diplomacy as they decide how to respond to offers of aid and/or international pressures. This politics “lab”, originally designed for undergraduate students at Harvard, has been slightly modified for secondary school students and will provide an excellent outlet to explore the discipline of politics.
Finally, participants will be introduced to the foundations of Law. Our lives are regulated by laws of every kind: private law, public law, criminal law, constitutional law, and aspects of commercial and environmental law. After an introduction to these branches, students will also encounter the careers they can follow I the various branches of the legal system and how they interrelate with each other.
Finally, there will be a focus on contract law, which more than any other branch of law dominates our everyday life.

Medicine and Natural Sciences

This course is designed to combine both the fundamental concepts of disciplines such as Physics, Biology and Chemistry, with the biological, physiological and anatomical background necessary for the study of Medicine. Though many students will be familiar with these disciplines as they are taught in school, in this course their interaction will be highlighted, such that students will see how these Physics, Chemistry and Biology interrelate, preparing them fully for future study.

In the first week, students will focus on the physical forces of the universe and how they combine in disciplines such as biochemistry. They will understand how the natural science subjects Physics, Biology and Chemistry are taught at university. This theoretical study will be complemented by evidential study, whereby students will also learn how these forces influence our daily lives, and therefore how they are applied in nature, space and beyond.

These foundations will be built on in the second week, where medical science takes centre stage. Far from mere rote learning, problems of immunology and the understanding of the cell will be presented to students for them to solve from first principles in small groups, enhancing every student’s personal experience of the scientific method. This will also teach students to take a critical approach to published scientific work, in addition to assimilating the knowledge required to succeed in these fields. By doing so, students are prepared to understand the principles behind microbes, infections and forensic medicine, whilst also gaining the hard science background necessary for the study of the pure sciences.

How many contact hours for my academic course?

25+ academic hours

Which social and cultural immersion activities are offered as part of the course?

Alongside the main academic course, Oxford Certificate Programmes at Worcester College include a variety of cultural talks, visits and activities. Examples may include:

Future Ready workshops
➤ Academic writing
➤ Teamwork
➤ Self-confidence
➤ Debating

Oxford Culture and Traditions
➤ College Traditions: from rowing to dining
➤ Oxford Nobel Prize Winners
➤ Kings and Queens, the monarchy and Oxford
➤ Romans, Saxons and Vikings
➤ Applying and Studying at Oxford

Guided Visits, Trips and Extracurricular activities
➤ Bodleian Library
➤ Oxford Botanic Garden
➤ Oxford Union Debating Chamber and Library
➤ Oxford City Treasure Hunt
➤ Sports and Games
➤ Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral
➤ Blenheim Palace, Birthplace of Winston Churchill
➤ Daytrip to Cambridge or Warwick Castle

Who is teaching my course?

All tutors who are teaching on Oxford Certificate Programmes offered by Worcester College (University of Oxford) are taught by tutors from Oxford or Cambridge.

Programme Certificate by Worcester College (University of Oxford)
Oxford Certificate Programmes at Worcester College offer high school students aged 15 and above the opportunity to experience Oxford and learn in an Oxford college setting. Upon satisfactory completion of the programme, participants receive a Certificate of Attendance and Achievement issued by Worcester College.

What is the teaching environment and where will I stay?

➤ Small study groups of 15–20 students
➤ Single room with standard facilities in student accommodation at Worcester College
➤ Three meals a day, including breakfast in the historic college dining hall
➤ Welcome reception and farewell dinner

Application deadline: 13 April 2025
Programme Fee: £5,380 GBP

The fee includes core academic subject, Enrichment Programme, board and lodging. Cognita students receive a £200 scholarship (original price £5,580); siblings receive a £500 scholarship.

Any questions?

Drop us an email at enquiries.cpc@worc.ox.ac.uk

Participants:
High School Students aged 15+
Location:
Worcester College (University of Oxford)
Programme Fee: £5,380.00