Main Image for The Socrates Project

The Socrates Project

Photo by Pete Mauney
The Socrates Project, a collaboration between the Central European University and Bard College Berlin, will offer undergraduate-level classes in the humanities and social sciences to adults who have suffered deprivation, economic or otherwise, that has prevented them from fulfilling their educational potential.
What We Do

What We Do

Classes are free and open to all, with no formal educational qualifications required. Priority is given to applicants who can demonstrate personal disadvantage and who complete an application interview successfully. In the first two years, courses will be offered in Budapest, Vienna, and Berlin by instructors from the Central European University, Bard College Berlin, and associated academic partners.

Photo: The Socrates Project at the Central European University.

Envisioning New Horizons and Greater Goals

  • About Us
    The Project is inspired by the U.S.-based Clemente Course in the Humanities, which is offered to people of low income in the U.S. as a way of helping lift them out of poverty and engage them more fully as citizens. The Project aims to provide its students with an experience of higher education based on free and open yet nonetheless rigorous discussion in small groups, which helps them develop a new and heightened sense of personal and academic accomplishment.
     
  • Courses
    Starting in January 2021, the Project will offer module-based interdisciplinary evening classes in English, German and Hungarian, team-taught by professors in philosophy, literature, art, history, anthropology, sociology, and political science. Students will be part of the learning community at the host institution, with the opportunity to participate in writing seminars, workshops, cultural events and talks by speakers invited from the Socrates community, and may be able to gain formal course credit.