From Textbooks to Tuscan Tales
My academic trajectory changed when I took my first Liberal Studies class—one that I enrolled in late, only signing up for because of my friend’s persistent pressure.
The professor of the course, and chair of the Liberal Studies department, Dr. David Livingstone, acknowledged my week-late arrival by jokingly questioning if I was sure I wanted to take the course.
Was I? I wasn’t even sure what the Liberal Studies program was. I looked it up on the way home, where Google vaguely described it as interdisciplinary. Alright.
Regardless of the elusive definition of Liberal Studies, I immediately fell in love with the discipline, adoring the full-picture approach to topics and our thorough discussions of anything from a single line of poetry to the political climate of a play.
It seemed to me that Liberal Studies was the ultimate school cheat code. Read fascinating stuff and chat about it endlessly.
After that class, I went to my advisor and switched my minor to Liberal Studies.
The VIU Liberal Studies program is a treasure trove of extracurricular opportunities, perfect for students eager to grow beyond the classroom. As a devoted enthusiast of all things extracurricular, I can’t get enough of what the program has to offer.
After taking a few courses, I’ve realised that defining a liberal education in a few words is no easy task. Unlike traditional studies focused on one discipline, Liberal Studies is all about being interdisciplinary, connecting the dots between the humanities and sciences to offer a broader perspective.
So, when I heard about the field school opportunity in Florence?
Yeah, I was all in.
I went to the information meeting, applied for the program, and paid all my fees without really inquiring into what the program actually was.
Mark Blackell, the Liberal Studies professor leading the 2024 Liberal Studies Abroad trip, warned us at the information meeting that this program isn’t a laid-back vacation with a side of school. No, Dr. Blackell informed, the LBST Abroad program is an academically intense program.
Main course school, with a side dish of travel.
Now that I have been through it and know it first hand, the Liberal Studies Abroad program is a field school where students study the Renaissance in Florence, Italy. Known as the cradle of the Renaissance, Florence houses some of the most amazing art in the world.
Other departments at VIU also offer study abroad trips, with Liberal Studies’ Florence being a standout destination for diving into the Renaissance.
The LBST Abroad program lasts for a month in a foreign country and is worth nine credits. While the program is loosely broken into three courses, it’s not a cafeteria-style course selection and instead has very interconnected lessons.
In the program, students visit churches, art galleries, and attend lectures and seminars. And do lots of reading and writing, of course.
Students also shack up in shared apartments, cranking up the immersion factor and making the experience that much more intense.
VIU has plenty of information on the LBST Abroad program, including student videos sharing their experiences.
In Dr. Blackell’s talk, he highlighted that the program entails lots of studying, reading, and whatever else he said. I ended up tuning out while I thought about how I could save up enough money to go.
Nothing was changing my mind—I was going on this trip. I brushed off his warnings as a scare tactic and filed the information away as boring school stuff.
It would be a lie to say I didn’t prepare for the program. Fear not, dear reader, for I spent months of preparation curating my perfect Euro-summer wardrobe. Countless hours went into thrifting and assembling the outfits I would wear around the streets of Florence, Italy.
After months of countdowns, packing, preparations, and pre-departure checklists, followed by a gruelling 36-hour travel day—powered by sheer will and minimal sleep—I finally landed on the streets of Florence and stood face-to-face with the largest cathedral I had ever seen. The awe-inspiring Duomo.
For those unfamiliar with the Duomo, I’m thrilled to be the one to enlighten you. The Duomo, officially known as the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Saint Mary of the Flower), began construction in 1296 with a Gothic design by Arnolfo di Cambio and was completed in 1436, crowned by the iconic dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.
Florence’s breathtaking Duomo.
IMAGE VIA: FlorenceWise
The Duomo is a triumph of human ingenuity—a masterpiece of architecture, design, and sculpture. And after travelling for over a full day, when you finally realise you’re standing in Italy for the first time, it becomes the most breathtaking sight you’ve ever laid eyes on.
This encounter with the Duomo began my immediate and consuming love affair with the city. I am to Florence as Carrie Bradshaw is to New York.
Let me tell you, there’s nothing that makes you feel more like a main character than strolling to the Duomo every morning on your way to grab an espresso and a croissant.
Throughout the program, we worked with a wonderful art historian, Monica Shenouda, who brought history to life with her vivid, engaging and always perfectly witty explanations.
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With ten of us squeezed around a painting and Monica five minutes deep into her eight-minute art history monologue at the Uffizi Gallery, I realize I am hooked on art history.
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Monica points to a painting of Jesus on the cross and casually refers to him as ‘sad-cappuccino Jesus’.
That’s the kind of professor she is—able to make even the most solemn religious art both relatable and profound.
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Looking back, I was wholly unprepared for how engaging and insightful the subject matter was.
I was not expecting to come out of this program reborn into a new, worldly, independent, creative, simply more alive version of myself.
Having spent most of my life in Nanaimo, I’d long felt I’d outgrown its small-town charm and was itching for a change of scenery where my creativity could truly flourish. Florence turned out to be exactly that.
I took daily walks around the city, treated myself to coffee every morning, scoured flea markets, read Dante beneath his statue, and cooked dinner with my roommates nearly every night. I fell in love with walkable cities and became a regular at a Donair shop. I did weekend trips to the beautiful canals of Venice and the picturesque villages of Cinque Terre.
Alongside nearly every adventure was my roommate and partner in crime, Maggie (though we firmly deny any allegations of wrongdoing).
Maggie and I on one of our many adventures, featuring Botticelli’s famous The Birth of Venus.
Remember that childhood dream of living with your best friend, doing fun things every day without any parents interrupting? Well, don’t be too envious, but I was living that dream. Sharing a room meant nightly sleepovers and pretty much doing everything together during the day.
Moving out for the first time, stepping out of the country without my parents, and falling head over heels for the city—it was everything I’d been craving.
This life-changing experience was not unique to me. Chiara Sedola—a Biology and Liberal Studies major—highlights how formative the experience was.
“Initially I was a bit nervous because I didn’t have much travel experience. Once I got there, I felt like the transition there was smooth,” Chiara shares. “Once we were in the thick of it, everything was just overwhelmingly awesome.”
Chiara reveals that her professors’ encouragement nudged her into joining the program—a move she says has turned into an incredible learning opportunity.
While the academic experience makes the program worthwhile, Chiara highlights the value of the opportunity for growth the program presents.
Moving forward, Chiara believes that she can rely on herself in a new, more profound way. “As someone who doesn’t have much travel experience, I feel like if I could handle that, what can I not do?” she says. “I can roll with the punches.”
Maggie Velisek is another student who struck gold with the program, finding it a game-changer.
While Maggie may have largely signed up because all her friends were doing it and she thought ‘that sounds really cool’, she ended up benefitting a lot from the program. The benefit of peer pressure reaffirms itself yet again.
“I feel like I realized that I am actually quite capable and I can do shit by myself in another country,” Maggie says.
Between her Duolingo efforts to learn Italian and stressing over the language barrier, Maggie realised that maybe the real journey was the friends she made along the way.
“A big part of my experience was the relationships I had with other students,” she says.
Maggie and I on one of our many adventures, featuring Botticelli’s famous The Birth of Venus.
Though the course content was interesting and insightful, the deep bonds created with the students through the shared experience was a highlight.
Among these peers is Clio Roe-LeDuc, a History major at VIU who’s right in the thick of it.
Clio initially signed up for the program back in 2020, but the pandemic had other plans and her trip was cancelled. It was one of the rare years the program didn’t run—just like in 2000, when it was derailed by avian flu fears.
Clio finally ended up going into the program this spring.
Reflecting on her experience, Clio praises the program’s holistic approach. “It’s really well designed to explore a certain time period from multiple angles,” she says. “We’re learning how to approach this historical period from different perspectives, which is a big strength of Liberal Studies.”
Liberal Studies adopts a very hands-on approach to education, using seminars as a way for students to actively engage with the texts studied. The Florence trip is a unique approach, as students get to visit and see the things described in the texts studied.
While Clio went into the program feeling very sure of herself due to past travel experience, she went through a lot of growth during her month abroad.
“I was expecting to be able to deal with [the stress] and I did,” she recounts. “But it was interesting to see at the end that I was really pushing myself, I really did get out of my comfort zone.”
Angelika Hebert, a Psychology major at VIU, also took the plunge and joined the abroad trip. “The experience was really beautiful,” she says, gushing about her love for churches.
The layout of the program was a big comfort for Angelika, who hadn’t had much previous travel experience.
Although having some friends going into the program made Angelika more comfortable, she found that it was easier to make friends once in Florence. Spending a month studying abroad is the ultimate icebreaker, forging bonds and turning strangers into fast friends.
These connections elevate the program to another level, Angelika points out: “One of the trip’s biggest highlights was definitely the friendships and connections we made.”
Looking back on her experience, Angelika reminisces about one standout text from the program: Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron. This collection of stories, set against the backdrop of the Black Death’s devastation in Florence, follows characters who flee the city for the nearby village of Fiesole to escape the chaos.
Angelika connects the value of the characters’ escape to Fiesole to her experience in Florence. The characters had to come back to Florence, but we had to return to Canada.
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And that is what made our trip to Florence so special: it was finite.
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Indeed, the dream of Florence had to end as each VIU student journeyed back to Nanaimo.
As we bid farewell to Florence’s cobblestone streets and ever-present churches, some fragments of the experience linger.
The beautiful streets of Florence at dusk.
What truly unites these memories—the common thread that binds these students—is the deep bond we forged together.
Moments like when Chiara, Maggie and I take out the trash at 9 PM and end up dancing for hours to Italian music at a surprise concert in the piazza—those are the kinds of experiences that stick with you, turning ordinary nights into unforgettable memories.
I loved every aspect of what I learned—studying history in its historical context was an unparalleled experience that transformed my education. However, what really made this the best experience of my life was the friendships formed along the way.
Just the other day, Chiara, Maggie, Clio, Angelika, and I cozied up to watch Netflix together. As they laughed and enjoyed the show, I found myself fading into the background, a proud parent savouring their joy. It’s incredible to think that these amazing women who were complete strangers to me a year ago, have now become some of my closest friends.
From first stumbling into a Liberal Studies class to falling in love with the program, Florence offers a unique and life-changing experience for students interested in studying the Renaissance in such a rich site.
Going through such a formative experience with others truly is a life-altering experience. Liberal Studies is a hidden gem of a program, with the abroad trip being of equal value.
You sign up for the content and stick around for the connections.
The beautiful streets of Florence at dusk.
Ella—short for Ellisif—is a passionate English and Liberal Studies student in her fourth year. She enjoys fashion and Lana del Rey, and spends her free time reading, writing, and thrifting.
