Me in front of Socrates’s prison cell!

Author | Emily Marthey | Major: Psychology, Sociology | Semester: Summer 2023

My name is Emily Marthey, and I am a student of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences studying psychology, sociology, and philosophy. This summer, I studied in Athens, Greece at the American College of Greece for one month through the AIFS program. I stumbled upon the AIFS program almost by chance. My partner and fellow Fellow Ella Scurlock and I began searching for an affordable, month-long program last fall, and after finding this one on the HogsAbroad site, we decided to apply. The course list looked promising, and we’d both always wanted to go to Greece! We were accepted and began the paperwork, which included physicals at the doctor’s office and wrestling with Passport applications, and as much as I tried to convince myself that it was real, it did not feel that way until we were on the plane. This was my first time outside of the country! I had no idea how to feel until we began our descent over the Greek islands: then I knew that I was meant to feel awe and gratitude.

We were escorted from the airport to our residence hall, which was inside the neighborhood of Agia Paraskevi, lying near the outskirts of east Athens. Campus was a short walk away from the hall, where we shared an apartment with four other students. Academically, the education system in Greece was not much different from that of the United States, other than the grading system, which is a bit more relaxed, holding an A minus at 75%. Lectures looked very similar to ones that I’d had at UARK, with the professor preparing slideshows ahead of time and using those to give a spoken lecture. It was taught in English. The class I took was called Social Problems, and my professor was incredible. She was extremely knowledgeable on social and economic inequalities, and explained the topics in our curriculum to us with great depth, citing additional sources and recommending other relevant books and movies for us to seek out. This class was immensely useful in expanding my knowledge of sociological concepts and their real-world manifestations.

Due to our residence hall’s location in the surrounding neighborhood of the campus, we got to experience Athens through the lens of a true local. I began almost every morning at a small bakery just a few blocks from our hall. I’d bring my book and sit outside with my coffee and chocolate crossiant, and I got to know the family that ran the bakery as the month went along. Most of our exposure to the culture of Greece came from our program director, Alice. She took us on a myriad of wonderful excursions to learn about and see all of the best parts of Greece. These included visits to Acropolis Hill to see the Parthenon, a concert at the Theatre of Dionysus, the Temple of Aphaea on the island of Aegina, a boat tour of a few Greek islands and gulfs, and a tour of the first “hospital”, the Temple of Asklepios at Cape Sounion. The tours were all incredibly well staffed, with knowledgeable tour guides who gave us wonderful information about the sites we were visiting.

Each of these adventures came with a beautiful traditional Greek meal, which included plates upon plates of Greek food, with started with a Greek salad and included dishes like moussaka, falafel, plates of tzatziki, spanikopita, souvlaki, and tiropita, a fried feta cheese honey pie, for dessert. In between these excursions and our studying, we used the buses and the Metro to get all around Athens and see explore downtown shopping centers, bakeries for coffee and pastries, restaurants and bars, and other historical sites that were not included in the program’s tours. One day, we walked with our friend from the program through Philopappos Hill to get to the Prison of Socrates!

I would absolutely recommend this program to other students. Greece was a wonderful place to visit, and so affordable as well. I do wish that I’d known beforehand a bit more about the public transportation system, because most everything was in Greek which is a little harder to type quickly into Translate. But once we got the hang of it, it was pretty easy and fun to get around town! We had reloadable cards which got us onto the buses, the Metro, and the trains. I ended up loving the public transit in Greece, and I miss it already! Not as much as I missed my cats while in Greece, though. They all got the biggest hugs upon our arrival!