There are few universities whose name inspires as much wonder and sparks as many fantasies as the legendary Harvard. Because you might just spend a week, two, or three just a few miles away during your next language study trip to the U.S., LEC has decided to give you a sneak peek at what you need to know about the area.
Harvard, a university based in Cambridge
Ironically enough—and quite delightfully— Harvard was founded in a town named… Cambridge, just like the British university with which it frequently goes head-to-head in rankings of the world’s best universities. But don’t get confused: this isn’t the Cambridge in England, but the one located in Massachusetts, a state you might have the chance to explore during a future language study trip to the USA.
Harvard, a distinguished member of the Ivy League
This institution of higher education was founded in 1636 and named after its first major benefactor, John Harvard, who passed away just two years after the university was established. A private institution, Harvard is one of the pillars of the Ivy League, a group comprising eight leading universities in the northeastern United States. Other members include the equally prestigious Princetonin New Jersey, and Yale in Connecticut.
6,700 students, including a few VIPs…
With some 6,700 students from the United States and elsewhere attending classes there each year, Harvard University has seen many famous figures pass through its halls—people you might hear about during a language study trip to the U. S. Among them are:
- U.S. Presidents John Adams, JFK, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama
- the actors and actresses Natalie Portman, Tommy Lee Jones, and Matt Damon
- tech and internet tycoons Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg
As you can see, the first step toward getting into Harvard one day is to master the language of Shakespeare…