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After previously attending Lehigh University’s Iacocca Global Entrepreneurship Intensive (IGEI), four alumni of the high school summer program have chosen to attend Lehigh University as undergraduates.

IGEI offers four weeks of college preparation for high school students, focusing on building entrepreneurship and global citizenship. Throughout the program, students stay on Lehigh’s campus, experiencing life as a college student. 

Among the four students who matriculated to Lehigh are Mehmet Durmus, ‘29, and Andrew Song, ‘29. Durmus and Song are both currently Finance majors and participated in the program in 2024, when they were juniors. 

After Durmus spoke with a family friend who completed his Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Lehigh, he knew he wanted to learn more about the business opportunities at Lehigh through the IGEI program. He also hoped this experience would help him better acclimate to college when he began. 

“The program showed me basically what I could do at Lehigh, the connections that Lehigh has as a community and alumni network, and just the general social area around it,” Durmus said.

In contrast, Song, who grew up 30 minutes away from campus, was already familiar with Lehigh and had been set on attending since 10th grade. He chose to apply to the program to begin his Lehigh journey sooner. 

Instilling independence

IGEI is a program of the Lee Iacocca Institute for Global Leadership. Carrie Duncan, program director for IGEI, believes that a crucial part of this program is the independence it provides students.

“You have to get yourself to breakfast and to class on time, and so helping our learners take this opportunity as one where they realize now they have greater responsibility, personal responsibility,” Duncan said. “They've decided to invest this amount of their time in the summer, so what are they going to do with that? And then we also cultivate a sense of shared responsibility, community responsibility.” 

The main focus of the IGEI program is its “intrapreneurial” consulting project. Working with small teams, students partner with local businesses to help solve a company’s issue.

Some businesses students work with include Just Born, Lackawanna College, PBS39, The Stone House Group, and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.

For Durmus’ project, his group worked with PBS39 to get younger audiences more engaged with talk radio. To accomplish this, Durmus utilized survey data from high school and middle school students.

Song worked with Lackawanna College, analyzing the best target demographic for the prospective students. 

Hands-on experience

Another portion of the pre-college program includes workshops that teach how to create and pitch business plans. These workshops are run by professionals from Lehigh’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC).

Throughout the program, students also get to choose a concentration course in an academic area they want to further explore, such as fintech, AI and Business, technical entrepreneurship, or more. 

In addition to learning on Lehigh’s campus, students have the opportunity to attend field trips in Philadelphia and New York that vary from year to year. During their session, Durmus and Song both had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the United Nations.

Song said that this experience pushed him out of his comfort zone, giving him insight into what meeting new people would be like in college. 

“This whole program really kind of forced you, in a way, to, at least me, to act or socialize in a way that I normally wouldn't have,” Song said.

“I thought, like I would at least see somebody that I knew in the program, but all these people were completely new to me. I'd never met them before,” he said. “If anything, that's also one of the most important skills I've gained from this, I would say. And obviously there are people I still keep in touch with, so it worked out.” 

A global mindset

Hosting citizens from more than 66 countries, the IGEI program is focused on cultivating a global mindset in participants. Song and Durmus both emphasized that this mission came through authentically in the program. 

“A third (of students) or a bit more than that were international. I think being able to meet those people, making friends with them, it really shows you that we're all teenagers in some aspect,” Song said. “I had a Chinese international student in my group, and getting to learn a little bit more about my own culture was also very helpful.” 

Durmus said that the program's environment helped him learn from people with backgrounds different from his own. 

“It basically replicated what college would be like,” Durmus said. “You have the diversity of people globally. You have the diversity of grades. You don't know if the person here is a senior or a first year, and the dorm life as well.” 

The importance of IGEI’s focus on global learning ties into the legacy of Lee Iacocca ‘45. Duncan believes Iacocca realized some of the problems in the American auto industry were caused by professionals who were unable to create inclusive solutions that considered others who were different from themselves. His legacy at Lehigh now helps to tackle this issue. 

“It just makes people better people as well, when you're able to get out of your own experience and to engage with difference,” Duncan said, “That legacy is one that we are excited to uphold through the program by putting together in lots of different groups and scenarios and activities, young people from around the world who otherwise would not necessarily have an opportunity to meet one another, to talk about things that matter to them, to work on projects and issues that are dear to their hearts.” 

Focused on fostering natural diversity, Duncan says the program does not look for a specific type of student, but rather the attitude they bring. 

“What we need are people who are going to be all in, who are going to ask questions when given the opportunity, who are going to give all their creativity to the projects they're in,” Duncan said. “So this sort of person who wants to just sort of hang back, not make a comment, just sort of passively receive the experience is not going to be the person who's going to thrive.”

This year, the Iacocca Global Entrepreneurship Intensive will take place from July 5 to 25. Students ages 15-17 are eligible to apply. Students can find more information about  here.