ECLA's first one-year programme was introduced in 2002, and continued until 2012 in a developed version as the Academy Year Programme. AY students divided their time equally between core courses and electives, and studied languages for extra credit. In 2011-12 the core courses were dedicated to Plato's Republic and its Interlocutors, Forms of Love: Eros, Agape and Philia, and The Values of the Florentine Renaissance. Some AY students already studied for 1-3 years elsewhere and typically came to ECLA to complement their disciplinary training with a broader context of moral, political, epistemological and aesthetic concerns. Other students enrolled in the AY Programme immediately after high school, often inspired by a serious interest in politics, ethics, literature or art - and a wish to find an alternative in higher education to what they considered premature specialization.