At the heart of HSYLC's approach to fostering scholarship and providing an enriching educational experience for Chinese high school students is the Seminar Program. Structured after Harvard College's own Freshman Seminar Program, seminars at HSYLC are designed and taught by Harvard undergraduates who have extensive knowledge in a particular area of interest and in which they feel passionate about teaching.
Seminars have a maximum enrollment of twelve. Through an extremely selective process, thirty seminar proposals were chosen and offered at HSYLC 2008, each led by a Harvard seminar leader and a teaching assistant volunteer from Chinese universities. Seminars covered a diverse range of topics, ranging from The Game Theory of International Relations, Your Brain on Computers, V.2.0: Present and Future Possibilities in Electronically Enhancing the Human Mind; to less conventional seminars, The Social Psychology of Love and Attraction, A History of Chocolate. Every seminar is approached through a variety of disciplinary lenses, including historical, economic, literary, anthropological, and ethnographic perspectives.
Beyond exposing students to new perspectives and knowledge, these seminars introduce students to a new method of learning — through active and collaborative research, critical analysis of sources and ideas, and debates and discussions among peers. Each high school participant attends three daily seminars of his or her choice. The summit includes two cycles of seminars, allowing each participant to be exposed to a total of six seminar topics.
