Athens is a city steeped in history, renowned for its energizing blend of old and new. By studying in Athens, Greece, students have an abundance of hands-on learning experiences at their fingertips. Known as the historical capital of Europe, Athens serves as an ideal landscape for living, learning, and exploration.
Athens study abroad is a unique learning experience served with a side of incredible views!
Are you interested in archaeology or art history study abroad? Athens allows you to utilize primary sources and artifacts as you explore museums and gain access to exclusive sites. Do your interests lie in politics, economics, or international affairs? Examine and discuss the main trends that will shape the Mediterranean and Southeastern European region over the next decade.
Curious about sustainability and the immense challenges and opportunities the contemporary Mediterranean metropolis faces? Engage in critical discussions and case studies that will allow you to think comparatively, study the urban and ecological relations across all spatial scales, and understand the viewpoint of different stakeholders.
Feel like exploring the city through theatre and performance study abroad? Athens is considered one of the most vibrant theatre scenes in Europe. Visit different theatres and other performance spaces, mingle with artists, and gain an understanding for the beginnings of theatre in its birthplace.
Come study in one of Europe’s most vibrant and significant cultural capitals—it will truly be the experience of a lifetime! Regardless of your academic interests, you will surely appreciate everyday life during study abroad in Athens: warm sunny days, friendly locals, the famous Mediterranean cuisine, notable art galleries and theaters, street art, lively bars and restaurants, festivals, cozy cafes, and beautiful coasts all within city limits. What more could you ask for? Next steps: Continue reading below and then purchase your plane ticket!
5 ways to utilize the landscape while studying in Athens
1. Visit the Acropolis
Renowned for its architectural design marveled by art historians for thousands of years, the Acropolis, defined as the elevated part of a city, is the focal point of Athens. Its structure baffles the modern world because of the way it was constructed to correct adjustments made by the naked eye. Its builders were advanced far ahead of their time, creating illusions in the marble chiseled to perfection.
You’ll get out there amongst living history during Athens study abroad.
This iconic symbol of Athens attracts over one million Instagram tags and more than 10 million visitors annually. Its presence is so bold that it draws in all visitors of the city, especially inquisitive scholars. Knowledge comes to life with an on-site lecture at the Acropolis, as students who study in Athens are invited to interact with the ancient city scape, including the imposing Propylaea, the complex intricate Erechtheum, and, of course, the Parthenon.
It’s time to make those textbook images a reality and experience history like never before. Don’t forget to swing by the new Acropolis museum and pick up a souvenir!
2. Taste the Mediterranean diet
As the late Anthony Bourdain headed off on a culinary odyssey to Greece, he too soon realized that the country’s reputation as the world’s healthiest diet was well deserved! Now it is your turn to get a real feel for the Mediterranean diet by exploring the tastes of Greece during study abroad in Athens. The typical foods Greeks eat give an all-round healthy benefit to the body and mind. Take it from the locals on the Greek island of Ikaria, known as the Island of Longevity, who are 2.5 times more likely to survive to 90 years old.
Students who study in Athens can venture into their local neighborhood to farmers’ markets, restaurants, deli shops, traditional cafes, gelaterias, bakeries, and food festivals. Food also serves many cultural and social purposes reflecting the different meanings that the production, preparation, consumption, and contemplation of food has in contemporary Greek society. Meals are the staple of daily life in Greece that bring people together. Meeting with farmers, merchants, nutritionists, winemakers, and everyday people who cook and serve food enriches your culinary—as well as your cultural—experience.
The sights will be incredible, but the tastes will be just as memorable while studying in Athens!
Tasting the amazing food that Greeks produce and prepare is one of the various perks of studying in Athens. What about dessert? On almost every street corner in Athens you will find bakeries with fresh baked goodies and pastries that will certainly have your mouth watering! Students in the fall semester will have the opportunity to attend the world’s most famous food festival “Taste of Athens”—an event that brings together Greece’s top chefs, and best food and drink brands from Athens’ top restaurants.
3. Follow a Greek Orthodox church service
One of the best ways to immerse yourself in a culture is through appreciating the ways the local people practice their faith. When you study in Athens, you can explore firsthand how Orthodoxy is lived and practiced in Greece. You are welcome to attend an Orthodox church service and observe how the congregation expresses its piety.
Students also have the opportunity to visit monasteries and interview monks and nuns about their unique religious experiences, while examining traditional and rare religious artifacts at museums in Athens. Spring semester study abroad students have an especially unique opportunity: to experience the Greek Orthodox Easter! Students can expect to witness beautiful ceremonies during Holy Week, and candle-lit processions through the streets on Good Friday.
On Easter Sunday, you are invited to participate in the feast of Pascha, the most important and widely celebrated holiday of the Greek Orthodox faith. It is the oldest tradition consisting of a lively celebration with traditional food, music, and dancing in the streets all over Greece! Be sure to come hungry, as many Greeks break their 40 day fast by enjoying lamb on the spit and the famous red egg cracking.
4. Volunteer and engage with the community
No study abroad experience is complete without getting to know the local culture and way of life.
Learn by doing! We feel that one of the most rewarding aspects of studying abroad is the opportunity to immerse yourself into the local community. The city of Athens allows you to connect your interests with your environment. Specifically, the recent European refugee crisis affecting much of Europe led to the establishment of numerous non-governmental organizations and initiatives strongly committed to helping the thousands displaced.
Studying in Athens today means that you can witness these efforts firsthand, gain exclusive insight into the issues Greece faces, while providing support to overcome these struggles by being part of their solution. Opportunities to engage with the community include teaching English as a second language, partaking in the creation of workshops, painting projects, developing recreational and educational activities, collecting items for integration centers, dancing and music lessons, and assisting refugee mothers and children.
Athens allows students to make a difference in the global community by offering these life-changing experiences that can be both valuable and rewarding.
5. Embark on your journey aboard the Trireme
Very few people get the opportunity to have a class lecture on board a trireme, but such is the case during study abroad in Athens. This massive warship once dominated in the Aegean sea and today Olympias 2 is the only successful and working reconstruction of the ancient trireme.
During the fourth and fifth century BC, this naval vessel served a decisive role and marked Athenian naval supremacy. The trireme got its name (meaning three banks of oars) from the arrangement of rowers in three lines powering the movement of this maritime giant.
It’s an extraordinary chance for expanding your knowledge in nautical archaeology, and an exciting adventure for all visitors by fully submerging into the replica artifact of a significant period in Greek history.
During Athens study abroad, your studies come to life!
Make the most of your Athens study abroad experience before the sun sets on your time abroad!
Those who study in Athens will inevitably find a collection of self-defining moments. Whether you’re here for a summer, a semester, or a year, Athens offers opportunities that will allow you to embrace the vibrant experience of day-to-day contact with local people, institutions, monuments, and landscapes of Greece and the Mediterranean.
You will find an endless range of learning experiences where the city will serve as your classroom; Athens, after all, is a modern, cosmopolitan city that is more than 3,000 years old. We invite you to enhance your academic experience, expand your worldview, explore a new culture, grow as an individual, and have lots of fun all during a study abroad in Athens experience. Enjoy and kalo taxidi!
View ALL Athens Study Abroad Programs
This article was written with help from College Year in Athens (CYA). CYA is a non-profit that has been operating study abroad programs in Greece for over 55 years; they pride themselves on the emphasis they place on learning outside the classroom. They are currently accepting applications.
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