The ways in which Greece has affected and influenced Western civilization are too numerous to count. Without the bases that Greek culture has provided for our modern Western way of life, the world as we know it would be completely unrecognizable.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a study abroad location more attractive than Greece. Its history is everywhere, so the education won’t be limited to the classroom, and universities – many of them as good as any in the world – are spread throughout the country. And the land itself is stunning and populated by famously generous, friendly people. In fact, most students would have a difficult time finding any drawbacks to studying in Greece.
Universities and language schools abound, and are located throughout the country, from Athens to Thessaloniki to Crete. So depending on what you would like to study, there are sure to be a number of schools that specialize in your specific field.
Students in modern-day Greece will benefit from both the ancient past and the exciting present. Wherever you choose to study, whether it is in one of the major cities or on one of the smaller islands in the Mediterranean, your life will be enriched in ways too numerous to count. If you want to learn the language, find a school, and catch a plane. The world is waiting for you. It all begins in Greece.
Popular Places to Study
Cities and Regions:
- Athens
- Nicosia
- Peloponnese
- Thessaloniki
- Corfu
- Crete
- Rhodes
- The Cyclades
- Kos
- Sporades
Is Greek Difficult to Learn
Learning the language at first, of course, may prove to be a barrier: Greek is considered to be one of the more difficult languages to learn if you have not grown up speaking it. But then again, English is also supposed to be very difficult, and people all over the world have learned to speak it with little problem. Plus, the added advantage of learning the language is that you will then be able to appreciate so much of the literature that has formed the basis of everything with which we are familiar, and reading Homer, for example, in the original Greek, is supposed to be one of the single most rewarding experiences one can have when it comes to literature.
About Greece
Culturally, Greece is on the rise. Though it is obviously better known for its ancient culture and achievements, modern Greeks have nothing to be embarrassed about. “In modern Greek literature, notable authors include Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for Literature [And] Professor John H. Argyris, a Greek mathematician and engineer, is credited with the invention of finite element analysis and the direct stiffness method”. Modern Greek cuisine is considered to be one of the healthiest in the world, and its popularity is increasing as more and more people discover its rather significant charms. Plus, the gorgeous countryside and breathtaking islands get a lot of good press, too.
It is, however, for its ancient culture that Greece is most famous. “The shores of Greece’s Aegean Sea saw the emergence of the first civilizations in Europe, namely the Minoan and the Mycenaean. After this, a Dark Age followed until around 800 BC, when a new era of Greek city-states emerged, establishing colonies along the Mediterranean, and a new alphabet was introduced. Plato described how the Greeks live round the Aegean Archipelago ‘like frogs around a pond’; their name has always been associated with the sea.
After the internal struggle between Spartans and Athenians, all parts of Greece were united under the rule of Alexander the Great and aimed at the defeat of the ‘eastern threat’ of the Persians. Alexander led the Greeks to a victorious campaign which established a Greek Empire and introduced a new era in world history, the Hellenistic”. This period of history saw the establishment of much of what is most familiar about modern Western ways, including the ways in which we use logic to solve problems, the math that is taught in our schools, and the philosophy that provides the underpinnings for the ways in which we see the world.