Summer opportunities are a good way to complement what we learn in our coursework during the Academic Year, and can also provide us with specific expertise relevant to our research and professional interests. Summer schools, for example tend to explore a given topic thoroughly and from multiple perspectives, and can also teach you useful tools (e.g. programming, statistics). Summer internships can help you develop a research project relevant to your thesis, or also give you professional experience that you might need if you choose to non-academic path.

Examples of summer schools (around 2 weeks):

• Summer Colloquia at National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR (Boulder, Colorado)
• Alpine Summer School (Valle D’Aosta, Italy)

Examples of summer programs (full-summer):

• Young Scientists Summer Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA (Laxenburg, Austria)

It is important that you discuss potential summer opportunities with your adviser to make sure it will complement your work during your PhD and will keep you on track for graduation.

If you know of other opportunities please let us know in the comments so that we can add them!