Felipe and Letizia’s youngest daughter will begin the course of Political Science and International Relations in September
In the next school year, Infanta Sofia will study political science and international relations in Lisbon, the Spanish Royal House. But it will not come to any Portuguese university, will attend Forward College, an international elite school that is present in several countries. So Sofia will do the first year in Lisbon, then will go to Paris and then to Berlin.
The institution was founded in 2021 by high French officials – Boris Walbaum, Céline Boisson and Jeffrey Sampson – and is funded by several millionaires. Those responsible believe that education must above all “cultivate life and the world we want to see tomorrow.” With a holistic approach to education, curricula were designed to “develop cognitive, social, emotional and practical intelligence”, preparing students to “succeed in a constantly changing world”, as explained in.
Forward College is linked to the University of London and the academic curriculum of the course that Infanta has chosen is directed by the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). Despite belonging to a British institution, the diploma is valid in the European Union.
Each course costs at least 18,500 euros. Infanta will attend the course in English, although with optional subjects in Portuguese, French and German. It will share the campus with young people of about 40 nationalities, but classes are given in small groups, with classes of up to 15 students and even with some individual classes. The first class, in September 2021, consisted of 28 students from 12 European countries, chosen from the 450 candidacies that the school says has received.
The college provides students with various art and cooking workshops, as well as different sports – in Lisbon will have, for example, surf classes.
In Lisbon, the University Campus is “located in a beautiful historical building in Rua das Flores, Chiado, a central and animated area of Lisbon, which offers the perfect combination of modern characteristics and traditional Portuguese architecture”, explains the institution. “Students also attend some of their academic classes at Soriano Learning Center, located at Interpress – Bairro Alto Creative Hub, just 8 minutes walk from Flores Learning Center.”
The university has a residence in Benfica, but the royal house says it has not yet decided where the infanta will be installed because it needs to find a “balance between security and infanta integration into university life”.
This will not be the first experience of the youngest daughter of the kings of Spain, who is 18 years old and in the last two years has studied at Atlantic College in Wales.
The sister, Princess Leonor, will enter the General Academy of Aviation in San Javier in Murcia to finish her military formation.
