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Our history

Cornell University Summer Session traces its roots to summer courses in geology, zoology, and entomology that were presented in the late 1870s. The university offered these courses in the summer to take advantage of the season's natural outdoor classrooms and to allow elementary and secondary school teachers to further their education while their schools were not in session.

Since that time, summer offerings have grown to comprise more than 600 courses and special programs, on and off campus and through distance learning, for 5,000 students from around the world. Cornell University Summer Session, now more than a hundred years old, is believed to be the longest (continuous) running summer session in the world.