About

LACC 2025

Application for 2025 is open. Please submit your application here: https://forms.gle/3dmifn2xbhfr9ZLk6

LACC-2024, we selected a group of 28 students drawn from applicants across 46 schools.

LACC-2023, we selected a group of 76 students from 46 different schools.

LACC-2022, we selected a group of 70 students from 42 different schools.

LACC-2021, we selected a group of 57 students from 30 different schools.

LACC-2020, we selected a group of 35 students from 27 different schools

Recent Participants

Program Description

We do not charge any fees from program participants. LACC is a summer program organized as a sequence of self-contained modules on various computing topics and consisting of lectures followed by a hands-on design or programming mini-project, and occasional guest lectures on various topics by researchers from local universities and laboratories. 

Starting with its inaugural offering that took place in the summer of 2011, with a group of eight students, LACC had its most recent offering over 8 days in 2024, with a cohort of 28 students, 7 guest speakers (professors), 9 graduate students engaged as instructors, and 9 high school students volunteering as TAs. This year, LACC will be entirely in-person, held at the beautiful UCLA campus from 07/14/2025 to 07/25/2025 with a 10-day program consisting of 6 modules: 

📘 Module 1 (7/14 + 15): Introduction to Coding

• Learn the basics of programming 

🧠 Module 2 (7/16 + 17): Algorithms

• Problem-solving, logic, and step-by-step thinking

🤖 Module 3 (7/18): Machine Learning and AI

• Learn how machines learn and make decisions

🔐 Module 4 (7/21): Security and Privacy

• Understand digital safety and data protection

🧑‍💻 Module 5 (7/22 + 23): Human-Centered Computing

• Design tech with people in mind

📟 Module 6 (7/24 + 25): Embedded Systems

• Explore computing inside everyday devices

The Philosophy behind LACC

LACC is designed to complement and go beyond the more abstract exposure to computing that the traditional high school computer science curriculum offers by way of AP Computer Science and related courses. Instead of an abstract focus on a specific programming language such as Java, LACC seeks to put computing in the context of its real-world applications, its algorithmic foundations, and the relationship of software to the underlying computing hardware substrate. As such, instead of focusing on language features, LACC modules and projects expose students to topics such how algorithms and programming come together to create systems, such as search engines and social networks that mine and analyze relationships among data and people on the Internet; cyber-physical systems such as robots that interact with the environment via sensors, actuators, and real-time software; networked computing systems such as mobile phones that communicate with other nodes on the internet; and, signal processing systems that process, manipulate, and make inferences from audio, video, and other types of physical data.

How to apply?

LACC 2025 is open for applications. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis as spots are filled. Please apply using the Google form at the top of this page. 

Given the nature of LACC program requiring laboratory and graduate student resources, we are able to accept only a limited number of participants. To be considered for participation in LACC, you should be entering 10th, 11th, or 12th grades next Fall, have a GPA of at least 3.0, and have an excellent record in science and mathematics. LACC challenges students beyond what most high schools offer and is not a remedial program. Applicants should have a strong interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), particularly computing, in order to benefit from LACC. Some prior experience in programming and/or electronics is beneficial but is not required.

The program is open to all eligible students. In case of more applications than we can accommodate, we will select based on application order while prioritizing students from the local area schools.

We do not charge any fees from program participants, but we are also unable to provide financial assistance for travel, lodging, and other personal costs that you may incur for participation in LACC.

LACC Organizers

The UCLA faculty behind LACC are Professors Puneet Gupta, Mani Srivastava, Yuan Tian, Lara Dolecek, Nader Sehatbakhsh, and Yang Zhang. LACC started under the umbrella of the Variability Expedition, a large multi-year multi-university research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and co-led by UCLA. As part of the Variability Expedition, Professor Dolecek, Gupta, and Srivastava's research groups developed new types of computers architected to cope with challenges of high cost, energy inefficiency, and low reliability that occur as the semiconductor devices using which computers are made shrink into the nanoscale regime. While the Variability Expedition project is now over, LACC has continued with generous support from National Science Foundation through projects such as Roseline CPS Frontier Project (2014-2020), the SaTC Project Privacy-Aware Trustworthy Control as a Service for the Internet of Things (2022-present), and the CoDec Expeditions Project (2024-present). LACC 2020 was also funded by the UCLA Computer Science Department. Critical to LACC are also the many graduate and undergraduate student volunteers who have helped develop and deliver the lecture material and design exercises for various modules, and supervised the research projects. For questions about year 2025's LACC, please email Prof. Yang Zhang at yangzhang@ucla.edu