From July 20 to July 31, 2020, the Undergraduate Summer School Program was held as scheduled. Through a combination of lectures, discussion, reading and co-curricular sessions, this program exposes students to the optics courses of the world's top university. A total of 164 undergraduates from College of Optical Science and Engineering and Department of Physics participated in the program.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a world-renowned research university. In 2015, UIUC was ranked 11th among public universities in the United States and 35th in the world. UIUC ranked first in the country for information science and top three in engineering. ZJU and UIUC have a broad foundation for international cooperation. Beginning in 2018, the college has selected undergraduates to attend a three-week summer school at UIUC every year. This year, the COVID-19 has hindered the pace of student exchanges abroad. Therefore, the college uses an online course platform to allow students to participate in foreign university courses without leaving home.

The OPTICS summer school program includes applied optics, physical optics, electromagnetic fields and electromagnetic waves, and optical communication technology. Although the students did not visit the UIUC campus in person, they could also feel the academic atmosphere of UIUC and the enthusiasm of the teachers.

The two-week program is divided into two stages: reading and lectures. In the first stage, teaching assistants will lead students to read, and answer questions. The second stage is optics courses taught by Professor Dragic from Electrical and Computer Engineering. Then students will work in groups to complete the design of various parts of an optical communication system and demonstrate online on the last day. The students said that they have learned a lot from this program, and the UIUC faculty team also praised the students' performance.

This program also arranged co-curricular sessions about School of Engineering/Graduate Applications, academic writing, Q&A with successful U of I Alumni, being successful graduate students. In these sessions, students learn from the outstanding students in UIUC and plan for the future.