Summer Camps Offer Science, Sports and Introspection
This summer, Westmont’s picturesque campus with state-of-the-art facilities becomes a vibrant hub of activity, welcoming young participants to traditional sports camps while showcasing newly launched, cutting-edge academic camps for high schoolers.
On June 15, 17 high school students began the new Engineering Design Innovation Camp, an immersive, weeklong experience of real-world problem-solving at the Fletcher Jones Foundation Center for Engineering. Guided by Daniel Jensen, director of engineering, and faculty mentors, campers use advanced lab spaces to design, build and prototype projects from scratch.
In July, the college launches Science by the Sea Camp, an intensive program tailored for rising high school juniors and seniors. By exploring college-level topics in physics, chemistry and mathematics, the young scientists will get a rigorous taste of STEM majors and research careers by analyzing data from the Large Hadron Collider, tracking cosmic rays and peering through the Westmont Observatory’s powerful Keck Telescope.
Trailhead, which the Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts has hosted since 2017, invites high school students to pause and explore how their personal faith, future careers and unique gifts intersect. Participants live in college residence halls, learn from world-class faculty and engage directly with local Santa Barbara nonprofits and ministries. Trailhead offers three separate week-long sessions with the final group running June 21-26.
For more than four decades, Westmont Athletics has hosted Summer Sports Camps, inviting local children aged 5 to 14 to practice, play and hone their skills on the college’s premier athletic fields. The weeklong camps, which operate through early August, cover a wide array of activities, including archery and badminton, cheer and dance, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, track and field, tennis and flag football.
“Most of our athletic teams include at least one Warrior who attended our sports camps,” said camp co-director Jeff Azain. This positive introduction to the campus often brings student-athletes back to Westmont a decade later to compete at the collegiate level. Led by Westmont’s own coaches and student-athletes, the sports camps continue to cultivate athletic growth and a love for sports in an encouraging, safe environment.