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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 Wiederspahns Dialogue of Civilizations to Italy. She was looking for something newsomething different from her desk-bound computer science classesand Wiederspahns month-long romp through 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 Italys 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 Farhans 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.

I didnt let myself get excited because I was concerned about the fact that it could have gotten canceled last minute, Farhan said. I was really happy that I actually made it to Italy.

With the return of Northeasterns bite-sized abroad experiences, professors and students are embracing the opportunity to venture outside the country for, in some cases, the first time since the start of the pandemic. While theres been plenty of excitement, many programs have had to change in response to the pandemic and its challenges.

Farhans troubles didnt end when she landed in Venice: She and a small group of students tested positive for COVID-19 within one-week of the programs start. Farhan took the test resultand the ensuing quarantine periodin stride.

I kind of think that I was grateful to be on the Dialogue in the first place, and I was just like, Oh, this is a little blip, Farhan said. I thought that I would rather have gotten COVID and was still in Italy than not gone on the Dialogue at all.

For Wiederspahn, who led the architecture and urbanism Dialogue to Italy for three summers prior to the pandemic, these challenges required a new level of adaptability and flexibility when approaching the program.

We included those students on our walks through Zoom, through iPhone meetings and taking pictures and letting them draw in their quarantine space, which was a luxury in Florence, Wiederspahn said. We were bringing them gelato, and they learned very quickly how to order food.

After a seven-day quarantine, Farhan and her fellow students all tested negative and rejoined the in-person excursions throughout Italy.

Wiederspahn has made very few changes to his Dialogue, but thats not the case for every professor.

Liza Weinstein, associate professor of sociology and anthropology and chair of the department, began planning her Dialogue to India in 2021. She previously ran a Dialogue to South Africa for three years, and the new program was designed as a way to foster peer-to-peer interactions between Northeastern Dialogue students and students in local universities, in this case Ashoka University, located just outside Delhi.

When it became clear Weinstein wouldnt be able to lead the program in 2021 due to the pandemic, she integrated some of the peer-to-peer elements into her class, bringing Ashoka students into her classroom remotely. Weinstein found the experience affirming and ultimately beneficial to the program she will lead later this summer.

It was advantageous, and I think I now have a better sense of what kinds of projects it would make sense for the students to do, Weinstein said. I think it would have been a lot more trial and error if we went to Ashoka without having this year of virtual engagements. Plus, Ive had the additional year to build relationships with colleagues at Ashoka and to understand the Ashoka students better and to prepare more fully. I feel like were going in further ahead than we would have been.

Unlike Farhan, attending a Dialogue during the pandemic has been smooth sailing for Julia Henning.

A first-year journalism and political science student, Henning is currently in London on an English culture and documentary filmmaking Dialogue with Michelle Carr, senior lecturer of communication studies. Henning said there have been no pandemic-related disruptions to her Dialogue.

After two years of being in this really small community, doing online classes, and then getting back into life this year but still masked and not going to big social events, its fun to just be able to jump back into that whole [way] of meeting people on public transportation and just talking to a bunch of people, going out to all the restaurants, Henning said.

Henning and Farhan have had very different adventures, but after two years of a pandemic where anything and everything was up in the air, they share a gratitude for their Dialogue experiences.

I feel like Im taking advantage of things more, Farhan said. During quarantine I said I wasnt going to be indoors unless I needed to sleep. I havent really stuck to that 100%, but I have spent more time outside, so Im happy with that.

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Dialogue of Civilizations programs returns to Northeastern - Northeastern University