8 Game Design Internships for High School Students
If you’re a high school student interested in game design, an internship in the field can offer you firsthand experience across disciplines such as programming, graphic design, and creative writing.
Game design, a part of video game development, involves creating stories, characters, goals, rules, and challenges that guide how players interact with a game. Participating in game design internships will give you a structured platform to express your creativity, problem-solving abilities, and willingness to learn—qualities highly valued by college admissions committees.
Here’s our curated list of 8 game design internships for high school students. Although some of the programs listed below are not traditional internships, they follow a similar structure and offer practical field experience!
Location: NYU Game Center, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: Free; students are responsible for their commute
Application Deadline: November 11, 2024
Dates: Saturdays from February 1 – May 10, 2025
Eligibility: Current freshmen, sophomores, or juniors in high school
NYU’s Future Game Designers is an intensive 14-week workshop designed to introduce high school students to digital game development, tabletop game design, game history, and the game industry. The workshop will introduce you to the methods, tools, and principles used in developing digital games.
You will work alone and in groups to create a series of digital prototypes or ‘sketches’, culminating in a final game. This is primarily a lab-based workshop, where you will participate in hands-on activities in addition to reading and discussions. Only 16 students will be selected to participate in this program.
The workshop will introduce you to tabletop game design and concepts, and the program aims to help you understand games within important critical and cultural frameworks. Since this workshop emphasizes teamwork, you can expect to build your skills in effective collaboration, communication, consensus building, decision-making, and working creatively in a team.
Location: In-person at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, or virtual
Cost: $4,920 (Residential) | $3,077 (Virtual). Need- and merit-based scholarships are available for California residents.
Application Deadline: June 1, 2025 (tentative, based on the 2024 program)
Dates: Multiple sessions were available in 2024; TBA for 2025
Session A: July 8 – July 19, 2024 (Virtual)
Session B: July 21 – August 3, 2024 (In-person)
Session C: August 4 – August 17, 2024 (In-person)
Eligibility: Students at least 15 years old in grades 9–12 with a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher
The UCLA Game Lab Summer Institute offers high school students an introduction to fundamental game design concepts, including creating playable characters, designing conflicts and choices, and providing players with engaging motivations and objectives. During the program, you will study the key aspects of game design and learn how to express your ideas through game-making and game art.
This two-week program includes workshop-style classes on the fundamentals of game design, creating compelling game characters, building game worlds, and programming/coding games, taught by alumni of the UCLA Game Lab. You will explore how to develop characters through modeling and animation, as well as how to utilize environmental elements like buildings, plants, terrain, and lighting to design a playable game world. You will get to build complete games or game assets in each of the four classes and create game art for your college application portfolios. You will also receive feedback and earn four units of UC credit that can enhance your academic and career prospects in the gaming industry.
Location: Remote! You can work from anywhere in the world.
Cost: $2,490; Financial aid is available.
Application Deadline: November 24, 2024 for the upcoming winter cohort
Dates: December 16, 2024 onwards for the winter cohort
Eligibility: Students who can work for 10-20 hours/week, for 8-12 weeks. Open to high school students, undergraduates, and gap year students!
Ladder Internships is a selective start-up internship program for ambitious high school students! Start-ups that offer internships range across a variety of industries from tech/deep tech, and AI/ML to health tech, marketing, journalism, consulting, and more. If you’re interested in game design, you can explore the options in web design/UIUX, software engineering, and tech.
Ladder’s start-ups are high-growth companies on average raising over a million dollars. Past founders have included YCombinator alumni, founders raising over 30 million dollars, or founders who previously worked at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. In the program, interns work closely with their managers and a Ladder Coach on real-world projects and present their work to the company. Here is the application form.
Interns are offered one-on-one training in communication, time management, and other such valuable skills and will also have the opportunity to attend group training sessions with other interns in their cohort. The virtual internship is usually 8 weeks long.
Location: In-person at NYU Downtown Brooklyn campus, NY or virtual
Cost:
$2,895; includes tuition, an extracurricular event fee, and a non-refundable application fee.
Need-based scholarships are available for commuter students based in New York.
On-campus housing is offered to all interested participants for an additional fee.
Application Deadline: Applications will open in early 2025
Dates: TBA for 2025; Multiple 2-week sessions were available in 2024:
Session 1: June 17 – June 28, 2024 (Online)
Session 2: July 8 – July 19, 2024 (In person)
Session 3: July 29 – August 9, 2024 (In person)
Eligibility: Rising high school sophomores, juniors, or seniors can apply. Students should have an intermediate understanding of coding and programming, ideally at least one formal coding course with a grade of B+ or higher.
NYU’s Coding for Game Design High School Summer Program offers a chance for high school students to learn about the principles of game design using C# and Unity scripting. During the program, you will work with experienced game designers and developers to create 2D/3D Unity games.
You’ll attend coding and game design lessons on mechanics, dynamics, aesthetic design, rules & play, level design, and audio design. You will work on your final game as part of a team. At the end of the two weeks, you will present your final game with your team and attend an award ceremony.
Location: University of California, Los Angeles, CA (USA) | University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
Cost: $3,895–$3,995 depending on campus; Scholarships are available.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis; 2025 applications will open in October
Dates: TBA for 2025; Multiple sessions were available in 2024:
University of British Columbia: July 20 – July 28, 2024 and August 1 – August 9, 2024
University of California, Los Angeles: June 23 – July 1, 2024 and July 5 – July 13, 2024
Eligibility: Students aged 14–18 who have completed at least one year of high school
The National Student Leadership Conference’s High School Game Design Program is a nine-day residential program for students interested in creating video games and interactive experiences. In this program, you will develop a 2D platformer, use game engines, design a game environment, and work on storylines. The program also includes playtesting to identify and address issues with your game.
In addition to these activities, the program offers workshops on topics like storyboarding and motion graphics as well as field trips to game studios and film schools. You will also have the opportunity to hear from guest speakers, including professional game designers, developers, and animators, who can provide valuable insights into the field.
Location: City College of New York campus, New York, NY
Cost/Stipend: Free; Students may be eligible for a stipend upon meeting certain eligibility requirements, including proof of residency.
Application Deadline: September 13, 2024. Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis as limited seats are available. You can find the Fall 2024 application here.
Dates: The Fall Program includes:
After-School courses: September 23 – December 21, 2024 (2 days a week)
Saturday courses: October 12 – December 21, 2024 (once a week)
Eligibility: Students in grades 9–12 who live or attend school in New York City
The City College of New York offers STEM courses for high school students featuring experienced faculty, cutting-edge facilities, and hands-on projects. In Fall 2024, the STEM Institute will offer 9 courses, including Robotics/Arduino, Artificial Intelligence, App Development, and Game Development. The game development course will help you learn programming fundamentals and create your video games.
You can take 2 classes during the Fall (2 weekday courses, or 1 weekday and 1 Saturday course). The after-school program runs from 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM and the Saturday program is from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM. You will receive one High School Honors Elective credit after completing each course. The courses are designed to give you both subject-specific knowledge and crucial research skills, developing your critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication.
Location: Smith College, Northampton, MA
Cost: $5,745 (2-week session) | $9,748 (4-week session), including deposit and $50 application fee. Financial aid is available.
Application Deadline: Applications typically close in mid-May; TBA for 2025
Dates: TBA for 2025; Two sessions were offered in 2024:
July 6 – July 19, 2024
July 21 – August 3, 2024
Eligibility: High school students entering 9th–12th grades in the fall can apply.
The Smith Summer Science and Engineering Program (SSEP) is tailored for exceptional high school students with a keen interest in science and engineering. During the program, you will choose two-week research courses in which you will work with Smith faculty members. You will also participate in informal lab lectures and gain experience conducting real experiments.
For students interested in game design, you can take the “Computer Graphics and Game Development with AI Integration” course, where you will learn about creating computer graphics and developing games using industry-standard tools. You will also learn to incorporate AI into games to improve gameplay. By the end of the course, you’ll produce a final project, an interactive game with AI integration. You can check out the courses available at SSEP here.
Location: In-person at MIT, Cambridge, MA or virtual
Cost/Stipend: Free for families making less than $150,000; For families with income above $150,000, the program fee is $1,750
Application Deadline: March 31, 2025 (tentative, based on the 2024 program)
Dates: July 8 – August 4, 2025 (tentative, based on the 2024 program)
Eligibility: High school students in the United States in a grade no greater than 11th grade can apply.
The MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI) offers opportunities in STEM
for rising high school seniors. This four-week program will teach you STEM skills through project-based, workshop-style courses. If you’re interested in game design and development, you can opt for the Serious Games Development with Artificial Intelligence (SGAI) course.
SGAI will introduce you to game design and artificial intelligence by allowing you to modify a game. Rather than being designed for entertainment, ‘serious games’ help you understand real-world situations such as disease spread, self-driving cars, and more. Knowing Python is a prerequisite for this course.
Once you learn the basics of game design and coding, you will work to develop a mod for the game to help investigate the research question. You will examine how a computer handles the moral dilemmas it is fed and learn how computers compare to humans in the complex environments that these serious games are based on. You can view the BWSI’s complete course listings here.
One other option—the Lumiere Research Scholar Program
If you’re interested in pursuing independent research, you could also consider applying to one of the Lumiere Research Scholar Programs, selective online high school programs for students founded with researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here.
Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.
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