CYA (COLLEGE YEAR IN ATHENS)

CYA offers each student an academically rigorous and diverse program of studies combined with the vibrant experience of day-to-day contact with the people, monuments, and landscape of Greece—a rapidly changing country with a uniquely varied past. Our staff and faculty are dedicated to opening students' minds to the possibilities of what "studying" can encompass; our ultimate goal is for participants to return home academically inspired, intellectually stimulated, and with a passionate commitment to the furtherance of international and intercultural understanding. We urge our students to ask questions that inspire them to step outside their own perspective, to walk in the footsteps--literally and metaphorically--as some of the deepest thinkers in human history. Founder Ismene Phylactopoulou (1907-1983), arrived in Greece from Smyrna as a refugee in 1922. A graduate of Wellesley College, she recognized Greece's tremendous historical and cultural importance to liberal arts studies as well as its potential draw for the developing study abroad movement. A woman of great energy and resolve, she set about creating a serious academic program that would open the hearts and minds of college-aged North Americans to Greece while maintaining a genuine concern for each student's educational and personal growth. Today, CYA offers an ever-growing range of study options and serves approximately 140 students each semester from top-tier colleges and universities.