Have you ever wondered what winter is like in California? The CISL Junior Program in San Francisco offers students the chance to experience a month in one of California’s most iconic cities, and we pack the student schedule with a tremendous amount of activities! The following list describes a typical week for students during the Winter 2016 program. It provides an idea of the activities our students experience, and how busy your time at CISL will be!
CISL Jr. Program Activities for Winter 2016
After meeting everyone at a CISL-organized pizza dinner on Sunday night, you and your new friends meet up again on Monday to go to your first day of class together. The program begins with simple placement testing in the morning, and then students spend the afternoon out and about, usually visiting Chinatown and touring a fortune cookie factory before heading to dinner. Not a bad first day of school! (Click here to learn more about Chinatown and its incredible history.)
On Tuesday, official classes begin. Thanks to the placement test, you will be in a classroom with students of the same level, and because CISL classes are so small (no more than eight students), you quickly become close with your classmates and teacher. The socializing continues after school, when you all go shopping at Westfield Mall, ride bicycles across the Golden Gate Bridge, take the Ferry across the San Francisco Bay to Sausalito, visit the Oakland Museum of California, enjoy live music and food trucks at Off the Grid, or visit the incredible Yerba Buena Center to see artwork by some of the coolest young artists in SF. That’s a lot of touring and socializing in just five days!
Other possible weekday activities include the following:
- Going rock climbing
- Visiting the Exploratorium
- Taking a walking tour of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood
- Playing laser tag
- Touring Berkeley and shopping on Telegraph Avenue
- Making and flying kites in Crissy Field
- Visiting the California Academy of Sciences
- Exploring Golden Gate Park
- Taking a walking tour of Lombard Street and Russian Hill
CISL is proud to offer school-organized activities every day of the week, so you can always expect something fun and exciting to do after school finishes each day.
Weekend Fun
To show students some of the incredible sites and cities in California, CISL organizes full-day excursions on Saturday and half-day excursions on Sunday every weekend. You and your friends might take a full-day excursion to places like Monterey, where you visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the charming town of Carmel, and beautiful Point Lobos State Park. Or perhaps this weekend includes a trip to Santa Cruz, where you explore the Beach Boardwalk and the famous Mystery Spot. Are you an adventure-seeker? Then you will be excited for the weekend when CISL visits Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Amusement Park!
Sundays consist of a half-day trip, like going ice skating in beautiful Union Square and then having dinner out in San Francisco, visiting Alcatraz, exploring Fishermen’s Wharf, or seeing a Golden State Warriors basketball game. At this point, it is hard to believe that you have only known your new friends for one week. It’s also difficult to imagine how much you have done and seen in just seven days!
For more information about the Winter Junior Programs at CISL, visit www.cisl.edu. We hope to see you in 2016!