Coming of Age in 2026: Show Us What It's Like to Be a Teenager Now New York Times (Online) The Learning Network What is it like to be a teenager right now? What are the unique challenges your generation faces? What special opportunities does the world of 2026 offer young people? Every year since 2020, The Learning Network has extended an open-ended invitation to teenagers to show us what it's like to grow up now. In 2020 , 2021 and 2022 , this “coming of age” contest focused chiefly on the Covid-19 pandemic and its myriad effects on young people. In 2023 , to celebrate our 25th anniversary as a site, we challenged our audience to give us an inside look at high school today. In 2024 , a year of pivotal elections around the world, we asked young people to reflect on their developing political and civic identities. And in 2025 , we invited both teachers and students to tell us what it's like to grow up at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming the world. This year we're again inviting teenagers to document, reflect and express themselves on the challenges and opportunities of growing up in today's world — but this time we're asking you to do it by sending us visual pieces only. That means any photo, cartoon, graph, chart, video, painting, drawing, illustration, or work of design that addresses any or all of the three questions in italics above. Please note, however: This is not a traditional art contest. If you're reading this and you're worried you're “not an artist” and have nothing to contribute, please know that you do. Just as in past years, we're much more interested in what your piece says about the teenage experience than we are in its technical merit. Plus, you can work alone or with others to make your piece. Our goal is always to tell as nuanced a story about teen life as possible, and we're looking for artifacts you already have as well as new work you create. For example, you probably have images on your camera roll right now that would provide interesting answers to the questions at the top of this post. (To see the wide range of work we've honored in the past, check out our collection, 40 Works of Visual Art That Show What It's Like to Be a Teenager Today.) So think creatively, and don't forget that every submission must be accompanied by an artist's statement that explains your process and tells how your work addresses our theme. Our F.A.Q. and Resources sections below offer much more detail, along with a range of examples. Questions? Post a comment here or write to us directly at LNFeedback@nytimes.com. Your submission will include two parts: a visual piece that documents teenage life in 2026, and an artist's statement that details your process and explains how it relates to that theme. Your entry must respond to at least one of these focus questions : What is it like to be a teenager right now? What are the unique challenges your generation faces? What special opportunities does the world of 2026 offer young people? Your submission can be funny or sad, raw or polished, focused on a tiny moment in April or reacting to an entire global movement. It can be deeply personal, or it can reflect the experiences of others. It's up to you what to express, as long as you address one or more of the questions above. Our related guide will take you through 40 winning works of teen art created for past iterations of this contest that we hope will inspire you. 1. The visual piece can be an artifact you already have, or something new you create for this contest. It could be a … Photograph Video Cartoon or comic Collage or work of mixed media (assuming all the elements were created by you) Graph, chart, map or other data visualization Drawing or illustration Painting or work of printmaking Sculpture Work of fashion, architecture or graphic design Anything else that you can capture in an image and upload digitally that shows us something unique, interesting or important about teenage life in 2026. Use your imagination, and if you're not sure something “counts,” please email us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com. 2. The artist's statement gives you up to 400 words to tell us in detail about your process — when, where, how and why you created or acquired the piece — and asks you to tell us how it relates to one or more of our focus questions, above. It also gives you the option of further documenting your process via photos or videos. As our rubric shows, this statement is an important part of the submission, so we hope you will craft it carefully. Please review the full official rules before submitting an entry. You can find more details in the Frequently Asked Questions section below. Your submission must include a visual piece. The visual piece can be any image or video that you can upload to our system digitally. Your entry must also include an artist's statement of up to 400 words that tells us when, where, how and why you created the piece, and how it relates to our theme of what it's like being a teenager in 2026. You also have the option of including photos or videos that document your process. All submissions should include only your own work . For example, if you create a collage, none of the images can come from the work of others. Nothing you submit can contain content that was generated, modified or enhanced by generative A.I. tools (tools that create new text, images or video based on user prompts). These tools include, but are not limited to, chatbots like Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity and image generators like Adobe Firefly, DALL·E and MidJourney. While you can use video and illustration programs including, but not limited to, CapCut, iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro, Canva, Procreate, Ibis Paint X and Adobe Photoshop, you cannot use A.I. features that automatically add, generate or fill in parts of your image or video (such as auto-generating backgrounds, inserting A.I. objects or applying A.I.-style filters). Standard adjustments like cropping, color correction or brightness are completely fine. We want to know as much as possible about how you created your work, and so the submission form includes an optional field where you can upload photos or video documenting your process. For example, you can submit photos of your half-finished painting or illustration; a screenshot of your video editing timeline; a built-in time-lapse video from your drawing app; or screenshots showing your art software's digital layers. In addition, please save all raw files related to the creation of your work , including the original photo files, raw footage, or layered digital files, in case our judges ask that you share them with us. You cannot submit anything you have already published elsewhere , including in a school newspaper. You can, however, send in work you have posted on social media, if the work is your own. (Please do not send a link to the social media post itself, however. Just send the work.) Please also keep in mind that The New York Times has a global audience, including many families, so your submission should be appropriate for a broad audience . (For instance, please avoid cursing.) You can work alone or with others. However, your name can be on only one submission. Students ages 13 to 19 in middle school or high school are eligible to participate, and all students must have parent or guardian permission to enter. Please see the F.A.Q. section for additional eligibility details. Students from anywhere in the world who meet these age requirements may participate. However, submissions must be created for an English-speaking audience . Entries cannot be processed through automated translation tools, including Google Translate and other generative A.I. tools. All entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Dec. 9, 2026, using the submission form below. A 2026 guide featuring 40 works by teen artists that have won our previous Coming of Age contests, along with an activity sheet that can help you come up with ideas. A Student Opinion forum to help you think about our three focus questions and how you might address them. A contest rubric that applies across mediums and genres. The November edition of our Ask a Reporter series focused on what visual editors at The New York Times look for in a successful image. From 2020, but still relevant to all our Coming of Age contests: a full guide for helping students document and reflect on their lives . Below are answers to your questions about submissions, judging, the rules of the contest and teaching with this contest. Please read these thoroughly and, if you still can't find what you're looking for, post your query in the comments or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com. Questions About Submissions This year you're only allowing images and video, while in the past you also allowed writing and audio. Why? The Learning Network has been running contests for nearly two decades now, and a vast majority of them have focused on writing. We also have an annual podcast contest. This year we wanted to focus at least one contest solely on visual expression. Another inspiration? The daily New York Times. Increasingly, the paper uses short videos , photo essays , charts and graphs , comics and illustrations to report on what's happening in the world. One of our jobs on The Learning Network is to help students see how the skills they learn in school translate to “real life,” and we hope this contest will encourage them to understand a broad range of ways to communicate information and to experiment with some themselves. But I'm not a visual artist. Do I have anything to contribute? Yes! As we say above, artistic merit is not the main focus of this contest. Instead, we're much more interested in telling a rich story about the teenage experience right now. And no matter who you are, you have something to add to that story that no one else can. First, scroll through this collection of 40 pieces of winning work from the last six years to see the many, many ways students have represented their worlds. You can also take a look at this additional guide that spotlights pieces from more of the 2020 finalists, many of which became part of a book of teen work we published. There you can see artifacts students found that include a to-do list, a recipe, a diary entry and a “toilet paper projection chart.” You can also see new work including a collage of selfies, a “food log” in photos, and a political cartoon. Those pieces were honored because they made us think, or made us laugh, or showed us in a fresh way what was on the minds of teenagers that year. You can also make or find things like them. So look around you and think about how to capture your experience, or your friends' or classmates', in a way that gives you creative satisfaction. OK, so can I take a photo of my writing? Would that count? You could, and in some cases that might work well. For instance, an image of a diary entry, letter or recipe, assuming the writing is legible, could be a valuable artifact. But simply sending us a picture of a poem or essay you've typed up isn't in the spirit of this challenge. Is digital art allowed? Yes, but the digital creation must be done by you. (We do not allow A.I.-generated images. Please see our rules above.) Can we make work that is about the same subjects as students in previous versions of this contest? Of course! We know that big topics like technology, relationships, and the stresses of high school concern every teenager. Just do your best to make a piece that shows a unique angle on the topic that is grounded in the specifics of your life and point of view. What have you experienced about this theme that others may not have? What's meaningful to say about that? Why are the artist's statements so important? What should I write? What will you do with them? We will read your artist's statement alongside your work to understand how you made your piece and how it relates to our theme. If your work is selected as a winner, we will also publish an edited version of your statement as a kind of caption for your piece. We have found over the years that the context each statement adds makes the winning collection as a whole more powerful for our audience. The statements also help show how students came at the same theme in different ways and highlight the nuances of each work. We hope that you'll write it in your natural, informal voice, and explain as well as you can how and why you made your piece, and what it shows about being a teenager today. Keep in mind that we have heard from many teachers that writing these statements is immensely helpful to students. Often, doing the metacognitive work of stepping back from a piece and trying to put into words why and how you made artistic choices, what you wanted to express, and how the work connects to a larger theme can help you see your piece anew and figure out how to make it stronger. We hope you'll compose your statement as carefully as you do your main piece because, as you can see from our rubric , it is an important part of the submission overall. _________ Questions About Judging How will my work be judged? Your work will be considered by New York Times journalists as well as Learning Network staff members and other educators. We will use this rubric to judge entries. Judging for our contests is blind, meaning we see only the entries themselves when we make our decisions, not the names of specific students or schools. What's the prize? Having your work published on The Learning Network and being eligible to be chosen to have your work published in a print edition of The New York Times. When will the winners be announced? It takes about two to three months to judge this contest. We hope to announce winners by early April 2027. My piece wasn't selected as a winner. Can you tell me why? We typically receive thousands of entries for our contests, so unfortunately, our team does not have the capacity to provide individual feedback on each student's essay. _________ Questions About the Rules What is your A.I. policy? To ensure that our contests remain rich learning opportunities, as well as honest and fair, we have the same rule for everyone, across all our challenges: Nothing you submit can contain content that was generated, modified or enhanced by generative A.I. tools (tools that create new text, images or video based on user prompts). These tools include, but are not limited to, chatbots like Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity and image generators like Adobe Firefly, DALL·E and MidJourney. To clarify, if you are participating in our contests you are NOT allowed to: Use an A.I. tool to generate a draft or image that you later revise. Use an A.I. tool to revise or polish a draft or image you have created yourself. Use any phrases, sentences, paragraphs, sounds, images or video clips generated or suggested by an A.I. tool. Use an A.I. tool to translate a work from one language into another. This policy is guided by the New York Times-wide A.I. policy: Times journalists and freelancers are not permitted to use A.I. to write articles. Having your work published in The New York Times is a privilege. Just like our journalists, you are responsible for what you submit. Work that we determine has violated our A.I. policy will be removed from consideration. Who is eligible to participate in this contest? This contest is open to students ages 13 to 19 who are in middle school or high school around the world. College students cannot submit an entry. However, high school students (including high school postgraduate students) who are taking one or more college classes can participate. Students attending their first year of a two-year CEGEP in Quebec Province can also participate. In addition, students ages 19 or under who are not enrolled in college, either because they are taking a gap year or because they are no longer attending school for any reason, can participate. The children and stepchildren of New York Times employees are not eligible to enter this contest. Nor are students who live in the same household as those employees. My piece was published in my school newspaper. Can I submit it to this contest? No. We ask that your creation be original for this contest. Please don't submit anything that was already published — in a school newspaper, in another contest or anywhere else — at the time of submission. You can, however, send in work you have posted on social media, if the work is your own. Whom can I contact if I have questions about this contest or problems submitting my entry? Please post any questions in the comments section or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com. _________ Questions About TEACHING WITH THIS CONTEST I'm not an art teacher. Can I still use this contest in my classroom? Yes! During the six years we have run this contest, we have heard from schools all over about how they used the related curriculum in their classrooms to help students reflect individually and build community together. Here is one great example of how two schools used the project that way. But you can also use it to build subject-specific skills. For instance, if you are a STEM teacher, you might have students create data visualizations of some aspect of their lives, especially if, perhaps, you are a fan of our What's Going On in This Graph? series and want your students to try making their own charts, graphs or maps. For social studies teachers , this contest might be a creative way to help students reflect on how world, national and local news affects them. Finalists have sent us work that responded to events like the 2020 presidential election, the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and state book bans; to laws and policies on climate, artificial intelligence, race, gender, and sexuality; and to a culture of news — and misinformation — overload. For English teachers , this contest offers a range of ways for students to think about how meaning-making works in different mediums, and to experiment with composing in those mediums themselves. The related writing prompts and exercises can encourage your students to do the kind of reflection and documentation that can lead to further narrative, persuasive or informative pieces focused on the issues that matter to them. The prompts can also serve a practical purpose, like writing a college essay. And, of course, if you are teaching a “coming of age” unit, your students might use this assignment to reflect on their own experiences of growing up. We hope you'll have fun with the possibilities! Do my students need a New York Times subscription to access these resources? No. Students can get free access to Times pieces through The Learning Network . All the activities for students on our site, including mentor texts and writing prompts, plus the Times articles they link to, are free. Students can search for articles using the search tool on our home page. However, if you are interested in learning more about school subscriptions, visit this page . How do my students prove to me that they entered this contest? After they press “Submit” on the form below, they will see a “Thank you for your submission.” line appear. They can take a screenshot of this message. Students should also receive a confirmation email within an hour of submitting , though some school email systems block emails from an external address. We will post the submission form here on the day the contest begins, Oct. 28, 2026.