Rome, Italy
Rome exhibits layers of history going back over two millennia—Etruscan tombs, Republican meeting rooms, imperial temples, early Christian churches, medieval bell towers, Renaissance palaces, and baroque basilicas—but it is also a very modern, vibrant, multicultural city.
In this one locale, a phenomenal concentration of history, legend, and monuments coexists with an equally phenomenal concentration of people busily going about their everyday lives.
While tourists visit the Vatican, the Forum Romanum, and the Trevi Fountain, many visitors often miss the many other sights that make the whole of Rome a museum—a living museum with a population of three million, with rich art, literary, music, theatre, and culinary traditions.
About the Program
The HWS program in Rome, Italy utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to explore different aspects of Italian culture and society. While the program is designed to immerse students fully in the experience of being in Rome, excursions will provide a wider perspective on the history, culture, and daily life of Italy as a whole. Students will live in furnished flats, providing opportunities to develop their Italian language skills and to experience Roman daily life.
Courses and program-related activities are arranged through our affiliation with the Borromini Institute.
Courses—Spring 2026
Students participating in the program will take four required courses:
ITAL 102: Beginning Italian II (1 credit)
This course will build upon the foundation of Italian language study completed at HWS prior to the program. A variety of visits to local sites will complement in-class instruction and a series of “labs” will introduce students to various aspects of Italian culture and society. Students with more advanced Italian skills will be placed in an upper-level class.
ARTH 2xx: Monuments & Memories (1 credit)
This course examines the history of commemoration, monument building, and memory production in the city of Rome from antiquity to the present day. The course explores monuments and memorials as political, cultural, social, and aesthetic expressions, and examines the ways that they operate within and beyond their historical contexts. Through a series of case studies and site visits, this course will consider which aspects of Roman history are visible throughout the city and how their locations, materiality, and aesthetics produce meaning. Students will be encouraged to consider whose perspectives and experiences are memorialized or made monumental as well as those which are made less- or in-visible and why. Rome’s multilayered nature, in which tangible remains of successive eras shape and inform visual experience, will be emphasized as will contemporary re-imaginings of past commemorative practices.
This course will be cross-listed to Critical Museum Studies and Architectural Studies.
ARTH 2xx: Contemporary Rome: Museums, Galleries, & the Art Market (1 credit)
This course focuses on Rome as the catalyst for a study of the contemporary art system in the 21st century. Rome is becoming an ever more international and multi-cultural contemporary capital. The course follows this development through visits to museums of contemporary art – the Museum of Contemporary Art of the City of Rome, the Museum of Art and Architecture of the Twenty-First Century, and the Museum of Other and Elsewhere. We explore art in the city center, in galleries and private art foundations, and art outside the city center, in artist studios and alternative spaces. Topics of conversation include the mission of the contemporary art museum, the role of the commercial art gallery, the evolution of studio art practices, the value and visibility of graffiti and street art, new technologies, and the art market.
This course will be cross-listed to Critical Museum Studies.
Sustainable Rome (1 credit)
This course will examine Italian culture and society through the perspective of sustainability. Students will be introduced to Italy and its regional traditions and will explore contemporary issues of sustainability related to urban space, waste, energy, mobility, water, and agriculture with lessons devoted to the success of the Mediterranean diet, food production, distribution, and consumption, as well as the ways in which architecture and design of the built environment can contribute to (or impede) the preservation of cultural heritage
Rome will serve as a laboratory for studying urban sustainability in an increasingly urban world in which cities account for the vast majority of the world’s wealth and population growth, as well as its energy use. Amidst the clamor to redesign urban environments, we will look at not only technological solutions and “smart cities” strategies but also traditional approaches to improving social, economic, and environmental conditions. Other topics include new trends in urban agriculture, community gardens and activist movements such as “guerrilla gardening”, advanced integrated urban agriculture systems, and innovative projects that can deliver high-quality products and address problems of food security.
Through the course, students will develop a rich understanding of the operational technologies of cities and the impact these technologies have on our environment.
ACADEMIC FOCUS
This program will be of particular interest to students in Studio Art, Art History, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, Urban Studies, Media and Society, Entrepreneurial Studies, European Studies, and Italian Studies.
This program is open to all sophomores, juniors, and seniors in good social and academic standing with a minimum GPA of 2.5. Students will be required to have successfully completed (with a C- or better) ITAL 101 during the fall semester preceding the program. Due to the challenging nature of study abroad, student academic and disciplinary records will be carefully screened.
Students reside in independent apartments arranged by the program while in Rome and will stay in hotels or hostels during excursions.
Program-related excursions vary from year to year depending on the courses offered and the interests of the faculty director(s). The program typically includes a combination of overnight excursions outside Rome, designed to provide students insight into other areas of the country, and day trips to important sites in and around Rome. Visits to locations in Northern Italy (including Florence, Carrara, Pietrasanta, and Venice) are tentatively planned for Spring 2025.
Students will be charged standard HWS tuition and fees, room fees, and a $600 administrative fee. This will cover tuition for a four-course semester, health insurance, housing, and program-related activities and excursions. Note that no HWS board fee will be charged. Students should plan to bring their board fee to cover meal expenses throughout the program. While meal expenses will vary according to individual tastes, we estimate $2300-$2500 should be sufficient for students who prepare their own meals.
Additional expenses not covered include airfare, visa, books, and personal expenses (laundry, entertainment, ground transportation and independent travel). We estimate airfare for this program at $1100-$1250 from the East Coast, visa at $50, and books at $250. It is difficult to give an accurate estimate of personal expenses because student spending habits differ considerably. We would suggest a minimum of $1500 above and beyond meal expenses. However, students on a tight budget should be able to manage with less. If you are concerned about finances, we strongly encourage you to talk with the CGE staff who can offer information and advice based on your specific situation.
Additional grant funding is available to students with financial need to defray these costs. Some grants come directly from HWS, and others are external, national competitions. You can find more information here. If you are concerned about finances, we strongly encourage you to talk to the CGE staff who can offer information and advice based on your specific situation.
HWS students must complete all components of the Global Education application in order to be considered for admission to this program.
- The Rome program is offered every semester. In the Fall semester the academic focus will vary depending upon the expertise of the faculty director while Art and Architecture is the focus in the Spring semester.
- All components of the application must be submitted online by the published deadline. Specific deadline dates are set each semester and typically will be in late September/early October (for Fall programs) and late February/early March (for Spring programs).
Program Handbook
IMPORTANT: The handbook(s) below is/are the most recent handbook(s) published for this program. A new version, with updated information, will be made available each semester. Program participants will receive their updated handbook approximately 2-3 months prior to their program’s start date.
SPRING HANDBOOK
Please DO NOT MAKE TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS until you have received final confirmation of the program start/finish dates for the specific semester you are attending. Dates included in versions of the program handbook intended for previous semesters do not necessarily apply to future programs.
NOTE: The information above is subject to change. Please see the CGE for more information.
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