Dialogues of Civilizations Back in Full Swing and Taking Students Around the World

Originally published on News@Northeastern.

Hadeel Farhan has spent the last two years thinking about Italy.

In 2020, the third-year computer science student decided she wanted to go on Professor Peter Wiederspahn’s Dialogue of Civilizations to Italy. She was looking for something new–something different from her desk-bound computer science classes–and Wiederspahn’s month-long on-site study of Italian architecture fit the bill. Farhan applied to the program and, to her delight, got accepted.

Farhan attended the first orientation session, and she grew even more excited. She headed out for spring break with Italy’s countryside and sunbaked terracotta roofs on her mind. Then, COVID-19 hit.

As international travel writ large ground to a halt, Northeastern canceled its study abroad and Dialogue programs before making some virtual. A few Dialogues returned in summer 2021, but not Farhan’s Italian dream trip. So, she waited. And when Farhan, who is entering her fourth and final year, saw that the Italian Dialogue would be returning this summer she leapt at her last chance to go to Italy.