Students considering study away in any semester of the 2024-25 academic year must complete the Study Away Approval Checklist for the Office of Global Education by April 1. The deadline is firm! (Students can withdraw if they decide not to study away.) The checklist is available through the Amherst College Travel Registry
To broaden the range of academic opportunities, especially in history, archeology, and art history, the department encourages majors to study abroad in Greece or Italy in their junior year. Students who participate in the semester and full-year programs featured below can expect major credit from the Classics Department, as long as the courses taken are suitable to fulfill departmental requirements.
College Year in Athens offers a variety and range of classes that together provide a well-rounded picture of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. Because the classes are taught in English, a previous knowledge of Modern Greek is not a prerequisite. Whenever relevant, classes are taught at sites and in museums, and an extensive study-travel program introduces all students to the major monuments of the country.
The program is designed to make the culture and history of Greece and its neighbors accessible. Greece's location, at the confluence of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, is excellent for those interested in historical and political developments in the area. Classics majors and those interested in archaeology will find incomparable opportunities.
CYA employs a rolling admissions policy. Since applications are considered only as long as space is available, CYA strongly encourages early application.
For more information: info@cyathens.org
Tel: 617.868.8200 Fax: 617.868.8207
Devynn Wilderman '25 with one of the cats of Athens, Fall 2023
Better known as the "Centro," the ICCS provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to study ancient history and archaeology, Greek and Latin literature, and ancient art while in Rome. Students are expected to take four courses per semester. Frequent site visits and explorations, intensive museum tours and lectures, and wider-ranging trips outside Rome are included as part of the course.
Chris Casey '24 and Priscilla Lee '25 visit the ruins of Paestum, Spring 2023
Middlebury College and Keble College at the University of Oxford have designed a humanities program for students interested in studying at Oxford, but based on the US academic year rather than the trimester academic calendar at Oxford. Students studying at CMRS are associate members of Keble College during their semester abroad. Unlike direct enrollment, students take tutorials as well as an integrated seminar course. As expected, students can study various subjects in English, but also history, philosophy, religion, gender studies, and classics.
From the CMRS website:
Based in the center of historic Oxford, this unique study abroad program offers challenging courses within Literature, History, Art History, Philosophy, Religion and Politics. The courses cover a wide range of modern as well as classical, medieval and early modern subjects.
Deadlines: Fall semester (or full year): March 1 Spring semester: September 15
For more information: mcmrs@middlebury.edu
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, one of America’s most distinguished centers devoted to advanced teaching and research, was founded in 1881 to provide American graduate students and scholars a base for their studies in the history and civilization of the Greek world. Today, it continues as a teaching institution, providing students a unique opportunity to study firsthand the sites and monuments of Greece. The school is also a superb resource for senior scholars pursuing research in fields ranging from antiquity to modern Greece, thanks to its internationally renowned libraries, the Blegen, dedicated to classical antiquity, and the Gennadius, which concentrates on the Greek world after the end of antiquity.
Summer Session
The six-week session is designed for those who wish to become acquainted with Greece and its antiquities in a limited time, and to improve their understanding of the relationship between the monuments, landscape, and climate of the country and its history, literature, and culture.
Enrollment is open to North American graduate and advanced undergraduate students and to high school and college instructors of classics and related subjects. Each session is limited to 20 participants.
Roughly half of the session is spent in travel throughout Greece. Three trips of varying duration give the participant an introduction to the major archaeological sites and museum collections in North and Central Greece, the Peloponnese, and Crete. The remainder of the session is devoted to study of the museums and monuments of Athens and the surrounding area with day trips to such sites as Marathon, Sounion, and Eleusis. Each participant will usually present two "on-site" oral reports on assigned topics. The program is demanding, both physically and intellectually.
2024 session dates: June 10-July 24
Application deadline for summer 2024: January 8, 2024.
Students interested in short-term, intensive study abroad are invited to take advantage of the CYA Summer Program, which offers unique, experience-based opportunities for learning. The semester-equivalent courses are offered in two consecutive sessions that run from late May into July and have been arranged to provide a number of options for continuing or complementary study. The program includes courses on the sites and monuments of ancient Athens, Modern Greek language and anthropology/service-learning on Paros, as well as study travel courses in archaeology, history, and religion that introduce students to major sites in Greece and the Aegean coast of Turkey. A new summer course offers participation in the excavation of an archaic sanctuary on a small Aegean island.
HERC offers short-term summer academic programs, some of which are focused on excavation. The 2024 Summer Program includes four options between June 9 and August 3.
Application deadline: April 30, 2024
For more information email: info@herc.org.gr
Sponsored by The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Athenian Agora is a program for volunteers wishing to participate in the archaeological excavations of the Athenian Agora during the summer. Approximately fifteen to twenty-five volunteers are chosen on the basis of academic qualifications and previous archaeological field experience. Both advanced undergraduate students and graduate students are eligible, although priority is given to graduate students preparing for careers in classical archaeology. Open to all nationalities.
The Volunteer Staff will participate in all aspects of the archaeological fieldwork under the supervision of a staff of field archaeologists and technical experts, all of whom have extensive field experience and advanced academic training in classical archaeology. Volunteers will be trained in the basic techniques of excavation: working with various tools; cleaning and investigating stratigraphy; delicate cleaning of artifacts in the ground; sifting of excavated earth and techniques of flotation; washing and basic conservation of pottery and other objects; clerical work involved in the keeping of excavation records, among other duties. Students will also receive training in various scientific methods and techniques. Tasks will be assigned in rotation, and volunteers are expected to participate in all of them. Room and a modest allowance for board are provided for the time volunteers are working at the excavations. Travel arrangements to and from Greece are the responsibility of each volunteer.
For additional information or an application, visit the ASCSA website:
https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/programs/summer-volunteer-program.
2024 session dates: June 10-August 2
Application deadline for summer 2024: December 9, 2023 (Applicants can expect to receive notification after March 1, 2024.)
The Gabii Project is an international archaeological initiative promoted by the Kelsey Museum of
Archaeology at the University of Michigan. It has been excavating the Latin city of Gabii since
2007 in order to study the formation and growth of a city-state that was, as neighbor and rival to
Rome in the first millennium BCE, an important player in early Roman history. The project's research
tackles big questions about the emergence and evolution of urbanism in ancient Italy: from city
planning to social stratification and the definition of elite and non-elite spaces and activities;
from the development of monumental civic architecture to the abandonment and repurposing
of the cityscape; and much else, through the integration of spatial data, architecture and
stratigraphy, and a wide variety of finds spanning from the Early Iron Age to Late Antiquity.
More information and online application are available at the Gabii Project website.
2024 session dates: June 11-July 17
Application deadline for summer 2024: December 1, 2023