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Four alumni of Lehigh University’s Iacocca Global Entrepreneurship Intensive (IGEI) have returned as undergraduate students, continuing a journey that began with a summer of global learning, entrepreneurship, and campus immersion.

IGEI offers four weeks of college preparation for high school students, focusing on entrepreneurial mindset, leadership development, and intercultural effectiveness. 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, during the summer between their junior and senior years of high school. 

After speaking with a family friend who completed his Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Lehigh, Durmus 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 early. 

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.

"IGEI learners have the opportunity to develop the kind of personal responsibility they’ll need to be successful in college: getting themselves up to be on time for class, taking ownership of their learning," Duncan said. "They’ve decided to invest their time at Lehigh this summer, and we set a high bar for both personal and community standards."

One important element of the IGEI program is its “intrapreneurial” consulting project. Working with small teams, students partner with local businesses to investigate a question, challenge, or opportunity.

Some businesses students work with include 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.

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 courses taught by Lehigh faculty in an academic areas they want to further explore, such as marketing, AI and Business, data-driven decision making, and 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. In 2024, Durmus and Song both had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the United Nations.

Song said the IGEI 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

IGEI has hosted citizens from more than 66 countries over its 25-year history. The 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 recognized that some of the problems in the American auto industry persisted because many industry leaders did not bring a global mindset to their business decisions. His legacy at Lehigh now helps to tackle this issue. 

“In addition to making people better business leaders, 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. “The Iacocca 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 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 the 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.”

IGEI enrollment is closed for 2026. Applications open each year in October for the following summer. Students can find more information about Iacocca pre-college programs here.