by Maria DeBlassie
Daily Lobo
Cappuccinos cost 80 cents in Rome
"Students living in Rome can wake up and have their morning cappuccino," said Susanne Anderson-Riedel, assistant professor of art history.
Anderson-Riedel and her husband, Paul Anderson, created a program that allows students to travel abroad and earn college credit. Though the program is in Rome, students will also take trips to historical places such as Pompeii and Assisi, as well as Florence and other Italian villages.
Anderson-Riedel said traveling abroad broadens your perspective and can change your life. After visiting Rome in college, her husband was so affected by his experience, he switched his major from engineering to art history, she said.
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"For better or for worse, it literally changed his life," Anderson-Reidel said.
The Rome Summer Arts Program runs July 2 to Aug. 2. The application deadline is today, Anderson-Riedel said, but students who are interested in this travel opportunity can contact her and turn in an application later.
The sooner students buy their ticket, the less expensive it will be, Anderson-Riedel said, and that's why the application deadline is early.
Students will be able to take classes in Italian, drawing and various art history courses. She said the end grade will be given for art portfolios, handwritten papers based on the analysis of art pieces, and if students take Italian, two exams.
"Even if you don't take Italian, you will pick something up from the locals," Anderson-Riedel said.
She said students will stay away form the tourist population and instead live in a residential neighborhood that has been functioning the same way for hundreds of years. Rome is the typical Italian city, Anderson-Riedel said, but since the Middle Ages, it has been used to having a large foreign population.
"For them, it's very normal that we would want to be there," she said.
The program costs $3,765, excluding airfare, museum fees and personal expenses, Anderson-Riedel said. The fee includes tuition, fees, housing, three meals a week at a local, family-owned restaurant, program orientation, health insurance, metro passes and transportation. The price is about half of what the average travel program would cost, Anderson-Riedel said, because they do everything themselves, from advertising to making the connections in Rome.
Anderson-Riedel said seeing famous pieces of art in their natural context is often overwhelming.
"It makes you shudder," Anderson-Riedel said. "Rome is built of layers of history and culture. You're living history every day."
