Cairo

AUP’s cultural program has been designed to give you opportunities to link your classroom experiences to the world outside, as your professors lead expeditions to destinations that relate back to your academic work. For those taking courses in Middle East studies, including the First-Year First Bridge program and elementary and intermediate Arabic, you will have the chance to visit Cairo, Egypt, where you can practice your linguistic skills and explore the city that you’ll have read so much about.

While staying in the heart of downtown Cairo, you will visit many of the locations referenced in the literature you’ll have studied in class, including the mosques and monuments of the Islamic City, the Pyramids at Giza, and the Egyptian Museum, home to the world’s largest collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts and the treasures of the boy-king Tutankhamun. You will have the opportunity to meet families in the nearby oasis of Fayoum, where you will learn more about ecotourism and the ways in which both you and local populations can benefit from such visits.

You will also spend time at AUP’s sister institution, the American University in Cairo, where you will attend classes and share experiences with your Arab and Egyptian peers. From ancient Egypt to the Islamic City, and from modern Cairo, the Arab world’s largest city and one of the largest on the African continent, to examining development issues in desert oases, this visit is sure to lay the foundations for years of reflection and further study of the Arab world.