Eight students from University of the Pacific are spending part of their summer immersed in historic Italian cities, with one ultimate goal: covering a full year of beginning Italian in only 40 days.

They arrived in Rome on May 16 and spent time in Florence. But, for the most part, they have been ensconced in Assisi—speaking only Italian while taking four hours of class each school day, with additional classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The Pacific students have learned to make pasta, sampled world-class Baci chocolates and interacted with local Italians and people from other countries also seeking to learn the language.

The program began in 2007 when Pacific established a partnership with Accademia Lingua Italiana Assisi and sent its first students in Summer 2008. The program was initially designed to support Conservatory students, with many required to take the language.

The program ran each year from 2008-2017 and Susan Giraldez, associate professor of Spanish, took over as director in 2014. She has traveled to Assisi with contingents in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. This is the first trip to Italy since the pandemic.

“Every day I wake up to the bells of the 12th century tower of San Rufino Cathedral just a few hundred feet from my bedroom,” Giraldez said. “No matter how long the day nor how early the morning, it is hard to feel anything but joy when I open the wooden doors of my kitchen balcony and look out at medieval stone walls, orchards, a castle tower and above it all, Mount Subasio. And the top item on my agenda each day is to spend it with eight extraordinary young adults.”

The students in the program are:

Conservatory of Music: Charlize Price ’25, Magdalena Bowen ’27 and Jordan Yang ’24;

College of the Pacific: José Solís ’26, Sean Powell ’24, Elisabeth Garner ’25, Naeli Perla ’24 and Sophie Briggs ’27.

Pacific students share some of their experiences:

“My first impression of Assisi was that it was a place from a fairytale book," Bowen said. "The luscious green mountains against the billowing clouds passing over Assisi blew me away. 

"The way the stores and houses built of stone as well as the cobblestone streets were perched on the mountain side with a magical-looking castle overlooking the land below was always something I have read about, but never lived in.”

“Staying in an Italian-speaking space heightens the language-learning experience," Solis said. "Being able to hear Italian outside the classroom allows me to think in the language and inspires me to try to speak it. I am excited with how much I understand.” 

“I have loved every art piece we have seen," Briggs said. "I love all the frescos and how they have kept them around. Being somewhere so rich in cultural history has been super interesting. 

"When walking around for the first 24 hours, and still now, it has been interesting to think about who was walking at the same spots as me and what their life was like then during the medieval times."

“There are so many things to see and places to go and explore, and the view from certain points in the city are breathtaking," Price said. "It is a great place for taking walks too, as it is not too crowded with cars and people. Assisi is unlike any place I have every visited.”

Learn more about Pacific's Italian Immersion program.