Storie di laureatә

On the major/minor experience

• Matthew Reichwein HC '20 on his ITAL thesis. Click here to view the video. 
• MJ Johnson '16 on her ITAL minor. Click here to view the video.
• Sofia Bella Vitale Gilles '13 on ITAL major. Click here to view her video.

Study Abroad in Italy (Junior Year)

• Matthew Reichwein, HC '20:  "Il mio tempo in Sorrento Italia è stato meraviglioso (2018) – le classi, i viaggi dappertutto, e le interazioni con tutti gli italiani, particolarmente la famiglia con cui vivevo e i parenti che ho incontrato in Calabria! Non vedo l’ora di tornare in Italia. Il video vi dà tutti i highlights del mio tempo, ma spero di raccontarvi tutto in più dettagli quando ritornerò nell’autunno." Cick here to view the video.

Honor Theses and Research Projects (Senior Year)

Senior honors Theses and Senior Research Projects in Italian 

Scholarships and Awards

• Sankeerthna Vedamtam '24: "I was very fortunate to receive the Bimonte Family Italian Scholarship from the Coccia Foundation at the end of my junior year (spring of 2023). I ended up using the funds to purchase several primary-language source materials. Specifically, I indulged, so to speak, in obtaining the original editions of "L’amore rubato" and "Bagheria," both written by Dacia Maraini. Several aspects combined to make these the two texts I was so interested in analyzing. For one, there was the incredible deep dive into Maraini’s works that the Italian 102 class had taken in Spring 2022 (much love to my classmates). In the second place, my training in cultural psychology made me uniquely excited to examine the author's oeuvre through these interdisciplinary lenses. In short, this scholarship provided me with the pathway to start independent post-graduate research by facilitating access to the literature in question. It was a fantastic aid, and I would highly recommend more people apply."

The SITE Teaching Program in Italy (Post Graduation)

• Laura Silla '14, now MD in Neurology. View her video about her experience with the SITE Program. And read more about her at this link!
• ​Allegra Flechter '12: "After graduation, I spent two incredible years of my life in Milan, in northern Italy, with the SITE Program. Once past the initial culture shock and homesickness, I found myself right at home in this simultaneously busy and laid-back city. I had to decide to push past my comfort zone in many areas, and the resulting personal growth was more than worth it. Italy takes a combination of diligent preparation and winging it, and you have to be okay with things not going as planned. I became a natural at lazy strolls, ice-cream in hand of course, marveling again and again at the incredible architecture and landscaping around me. I met friends who have become family, I tried incredible cuisine, I am now a bit of a fashionista, and I have a repertoire of wonderful experiences I love telling my students of Italian. Nothing worth anything comes easy, but considering how incredible Milan was, my time there just might be the exception." Click here to visit Allegra's website!
• Cindy Columbus '14: "I worked at a high school called Istituto Salvador Allende in Milan. My job was to encourage speaking as much as possible in the classroom with dialogues, debates, games, discussions, etc. I think the best lesson I did was one in which I brought in a bunch of clothing and had the students create and act out dialogues as if they were at a store shopping. Outside of the classroom, I found that one challenging aspect of participating in SITE was building up my social life. Starting off, the only person my age that I knew was the other American teaching assistant at my school, and my only commitment was the 12 hours of teaching required each week by the program. Some of the things that I did to change this were: 1) Joining a local gym. 2) Seeking out opportunities for giving private lessons. 3) Contacting and meeting up with other SITE assistants placed in Milan. 4) Looking for and attending events to meet locals. (Every Thursday, I went to a popular English-speaking happy hour at a bar and always met lots of Italians there.) There are plenty of ways to build a community in the city you're placed in. You just have to put in the effort! Overall, I really enjoyed my year in Milan and would be happy to answer any questions people have about my experience." Click here for more! 

Success Stories and Achievements 

• Lilian Belzer '25 and Sofia Cirone '25 translated the book "The Titulus Crucis on Michelangelo's Crucifix" by Marco Zini from Italian into English under the supervision of Prof. Stefano Baldassarri, Director at ISI Florence. Click Here To Read!
• Sankeerthna Vedamtam '24 opened up a free and open website in which she recommends, presents, and analyzes a range of international movies, including Italian and Indian films. Click here to visit the website! 
• Lake Sanchez '24 and Renata del Vecchio '25 authored a podcast on Dacia Maraini's "Marina è caduta per le scale". Click here to listen to this podcast!
• Alani Hicks-Bartlett '05, Ph.D. UC Berkeley 2016, Assistant Professor at Brown University, was awarded the Huntington Library Fellowship with a project titled Topic: Writing the Disabled Self in Early Modern Literature: Petrarch, Montaigne, Cervantes. Read more on the topic here!
• Rebecca Fisher '18 co-founded "Beyond the Bell Tours", a company which offers historical tours of Philadelphia centered around women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, a company that offers historical tours of Philadelphia centered around women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. Read More Here! 
• Hallie Novak '19 is an ELL Teacher. Click here to read "The Art of Eating Well at the Bryn Mawr Italian Department.
• Emilia Otte '18 Mirror's Justice Reporter, CT: "While at Bryn Mawr, I took multiple Italian courses on topics like Bocaccio's Decameron, literature of the Risorgimento, the mafia and immigration. I then attended NYU's School of Journalism, majoring in Global Journalism with a concentration on European and the Mediterranean. I wrote my master’s thesis on the orphans of domestic violence - known as orfani speciali - in Italy. I spent six weeks based in Rome, where I talked to attorneys, professors, journalists and politicians, and had the honor of speaking with several of these orphans and the family members taking care of them. I traveled to Bari, Florence, Caserta and Bologna and met with the people who worked directly with these orphans and the families directly affected. I now work for the Connecticut Mirror reporting on criminal justice and immigration. Click here to read more about Emilia; Click here to read the article "An end to Mediterranean standoff?" by Emilia Otte '18.
• Laura Silla '14  MD in Neurology: “I translated rare and ancient Italian medical and scientific texts into English for worldwide access while obtaining insight into international and historical medicine, patient care, and scientific scholarship abroad from Università degli Studi di Firenze Biblioteca Biomedica". Read more here! Click here to read the catalogue translated by Silla
• Allegra Flechter '12 author of a book of poems, "Daisy Chains": "At the core, this is meant to be a coming together. Like a wild daisy field. Less an orderly working out of the frayed and frazzled edges of the tapestry of my psyche, and more a celebration of what emerges when I am ok letting the edges settle as they will". Click here to read more on Allegra Flecher's works 
• Jessi Harvey '09 freelance composer and music teacher. Their compositions take inspiration from science and nature, and integrate social curiosity, humor, and a love of knowledge. Click here to visit their website.