Explore how markets move, analyze charts in real time, and practice new skills through paper trading in this 2-week full-day academy for high school students at UCLA.
Course Description
A price chart moves, and a decision is waiting. Learn to pause, examine the evidence, and use a plan before acting on a pattern.
In this course you will learn basic financial-market vocabulary and use guided chart examples to recognize trends and important price levels. Read and analyze charts in real time, then practice through paper trading without risking real money.
Compare possible choices and explain what supports them. Preparation, limits, risk and reward, and review give you a structure for deciding what to do. Patience, confidence, fear, and overconfidence show how emotion can shape the same decision.
Create a simple personal framework with rules for preparation, risk, and reflection, along with a journal template for reviewing choices. The academy is an introduction to studying market decisions and learning from outcomes. It does not promise easy or guaranteed profits.
This two-week full-day academy for high school students takes place at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. The program is developed by UCLA and offered in partnership with Summer Discovery. Students focus on one academy for the full program. Residential and commuter options are available.
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Ryan Wilson
Ryan Wilson is a professional day trader with seven years of experience in the futures market. His interest in trading began during the AMC short squeeze, which prompted him to pursue a deeper understanding of market mechanics and develop his own proprietary trading model. He holds a degree in cybersecurity from a private university in upstate New York and has since built a career at the intersection of trading and social media. A former college and high school athlete, Ryan competed in both soccer and tennis.
What You Will Do
• Read charts using basic market vocabulary
• Identify trends and important price levels in real time
• Practice decisions through paper trading without real-money risk
• Compare scenarios and explain the evidence behind a choice
• Examine how plans, limits, and emotions affect trading
• Create a personal decision framework and review journal template
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Explain basic chart terms and recognize simple market trends
• Use evidence and risk limits to explain a simulated trading decision
• Recognize how emotions and review habits affect decisions under uncertainty
You’ll leave with your beginner-friendly market-decision framework, journal template, and a certificate of completion.
Why Day Trading Skills Matter
Financial markets offer a useful setting for learning how to make decisions when outcomes are uncertain. Reading charts helps students notice patterns, but a pattern alone never guarantees what will happen next. Paper trading gives students a practical, low-risk way to test a choice, observe the result, and reflect on what they would do differently.
Students also examine how patience, fear, confidence, and overconfidence can shape decisions. Creating rules and reviewing past choices strengthens self-awareness, quantitative reasoning, and responsible judgment. These habits are valuable far beyond markets, from academic work and entrepreneurship to everyday problem-solving.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
If you’re curious about financial markets or the psychology behind a decision, this academy gives you a starting point. No prior trading or chart-reading experience is required.
You’ll look for patterns, compare examples, and reflect on choices through paper trading. The focus is responsible decision-making and risk awareness, with room to find out whether finance or economics interests you further.
Recommended by More Than 4 out of 5 Students
Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 UCLA high school program.
Your Summer at UCLA
UCLA gives high-school students the opportunity to explore an academic interest while experiencing university life in Los Angeles, a city where entertainment, technology, business, science, and culture constantly intersect. The campus has its own community and rhythm while connecting students to a wider environment built around creativity and new ideas.
Students learn alongside peers, navigate a large campus, and gain independence through everyday choices and responsibilities. Time outside class expands the experience through friendships, campus life, and opportunities to notice which subjects and settings hold their attention. For families, UCLA offers a valuable combination of substantive academics, personal growth, and clearer direction about what a student may want to study, experience more deeply, or pursue next.
Summer Discovery Certificate of Completion
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive