Summer at ACT

No less than 69 U.S. students are participating in ACT's 5 week summer study abroad program this year. Students come from various states and are recruited mostly through the 30 plus U.S. partner schools that ACT has agreements with.
 
Students enroll in academic courses such as management, history, politics, Greek language, philosophy, anthropology, computer science and even open sea sailing. However the highlight of the semester consists in the many field trips that are organized by the International Programs Office, which give the students the opportunity to visit the towns of Macedonia, exceptional museums and sites such as those in Vergina, Pella, Dion. By the end of their first overnight tip to Corfu or Athens,. these students are callingThessaloniki their 'home'.
 
20 of these summer students are here on full scholarships to attend a  special program called the Pella Project or the Hellenic Birthright Project. They are taking a humanities course focused on the World of Alexander the Great and a Museum Practicum. These students, which all have Greek Heritage, have in their most part never been to Greece before. Many of them are in fact the first member of the family to come back to the 'home land', so this becomes a once-in-a-livetime journey; it is the journey of discovering one's roots and one's full identity. During their 4 day trip across Eastern Macedonia, Thrace and Turkey the students will be visiting monuments such as Agia Sophia and having a personal session with the Patriarch of Constantinople. They will be visiting Toia, where young Alexander sacrificed to the Gods in hopes for a successful campaign in Asia; possibly these choice students will be praying for devine protection as they embark on their own adult life journey which is just beginning.