Students who want to get out of the classroom and learn on land and by sea may want to consider applying for the Honors in the Aegean study abroad program which is offered to both honors and non-honors students.
The program offers two classical studies courses, two honors courses and will potentially offer an English course, said Drew Arms, Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College professional-in-residence.
Arms said she hopes to get 13 students to register for the program, which will run from May 24 to June 16.
The Honors in the Aegean program is being revived after six-year absence.
“We’re really excited to present it after we’ve been studying a lot of both the literature and history of the classical world in the Honors College,” Arms said. “We thought it was a good time to sort of launch it again.”
What distinguishes this program from other study abroad trips is the number of places visited, program director Michelle Zerba said.
“We’ve designed it to be a program that moves to several different locations,” Zerba said. “We probably visit more places than any other program offered by the Academic Programs Abroad.”
The trip will include visits to more than a dozen sites of the ancient world, including the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, the site of the original Olympic Games in Olympia, Greece, and Mycenae, Greece — a site associated with Agamemnon, an important figure of the Trojan War. The curriculum will be centered around the classical sites of the cities, Zerba said.
Students will begin the trip on the mainland in Athens, head north through Olympia, Delphi and Thessaloniki, Greece, and then proceed south, island-hopping through the Aegean Sea.
“All of these places are sort of dotted with references to the ancient world,” Arms said.
Chemical engineering and liberal arts senior Kurt Ristroph, who plans to attend the trip, said he is excited to visit the sites he has studied in classical literature.
“I’m looking forward to actually going to places that I’ve read about in literature that is more than 2000 years old,” Ristroph said. “I’m really excited for that.”
Most courses will be instructed on-site as opposed to in classrooms, Arms said. For instance, when studying Greek drama, students and professors will be at the best preserved theater of the ancient world in Epidaurus, Greece.
“We lecture out in the open, as the Greeks would,” Arms said.
An essential part of the coursework will be the scavenger hunt-like worksheets students must complete at each site, Zerba said.
“Because we visit so many sites, it’s one way to have the students interact with the journey itself,” Zerba said.
Outside of the worksheets, most assignments, exams and papers are due in the month following the trip, allowing participants to focus and enjoy being abroad, Arms said.
Arms said the program would benefit all students, no matter what they are studying.
“No matter your major, there is something in this ancient world that is going to speak to you– that is going to resonate with your major,” Arms said.