Quarter Zero Camp

“The QØ Startup Camp is a 5-day/ 10-day summer entrepreneurship camp filled with learning, skills development, and outdoor adventures. Accepting applicants from incoming high school freshman to graduating seniors.

Nestled between mountains and ocean, lies beautiful Santa Barbara, CA. Entrepreneurs flock here for the emphasis on living a balanced lifestyle as much as they do for the growing startup scene. Our Santa Barbara QØ Startup Camp offers you real-life startup scenarios mixed with sun-baked local activities such as surfing, kayaking, and rock climbing. We’ve partnered with the University of California, Santa Barbara to give you the ultimate entrepreneurial education on the beach.”

How do I get started? Go to their website and get started.

How do I expand this narrative arc? Check out some of the other entrepreneurship ideas we have found for you by searching our database under “Business and Entrepreneurship”. You should think about how you can broaden or deepen your narrative arc, including with one of the following:

• Spend your next summer in another pure entrepreneurship program like LaunchX

• Have a look at Wharton’s Management and Technology summer program.

• If you are interested in the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship, consider Sustainable Summer, which includes a program at Dartmouth at which students develop commercial solutions to climate change problems.

• Put your ideas into action when you launch a business in your own community.

• The Knowledge Society runs year round programs in a number of cities across the country. Find out if there’s a cohort near you.

HOT TIP: This camp is combination work and play, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. On its own, it seems like a fun way for a budding businessperson to spend the summer. Most likely, the real value will come from whatever product or prototype emerges from the program, and your ability to take it beyond the short duration of the camp. See below for general information on summer programs.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SUMMER PROGRAMS: College admissions officers are very adept at identifying “resume padders”: expensive, one-off programs paid for by your parents which do not mesh with your narrative arc. Therefore, make sure any summer program or course you consider falls into one (or more) of these four buckets: 

• Highly selective/competitive

• Totally unique + linked to your narrative arc

• Evidence of adulthood (long hours, multi-year commitment or simply hard work)

• A jumping off point or expansion for an authentic narrative arc. 

If none of the above apply, a program could still have value to you if it allows you to test a potential interest. However, if it does not end up being a jumping off point for further interests, then you may not want to mention it in your high school resume