The College of Europe, in Bruges, Belgium, is a small, elite graduate institution, the world's oldest and best known in the field of European studies, that trains the future leaders of the European Union (EU). The college is known as the premier training ground for officials of the European Commission, which is the executive body of the EU, and of related supranational bodies, most of them located in Brussels. The students, all 274 of whom are fluent in at least two languages and typically know four or five, must take two full semesters of courses and write a master's thesis in little more than 10 months.