Class Year: 2024
Program: IES Rome, Italy
Email: fusche01@gettysburg.edu
Hometown: Woodcliff Lake, NJ
Major/Minor: Anthropology Major; Classics & History Minor
Campus Activities: I have been on the Women's Rugby team since sophomore year, and currently am the acting treasurer. I also work at the library in User Services. I had previously been involved in programs through the Eisenhower Institute and had gone through the GLC program.
Favorite Experience: My favorite experience was getting to visit Pompeii with one of my classes and getting to see the ancient city through a lens that differs from just a tourist. I had been learning about Pompeii for the entire semester as that was the focus of the class (it was called "The Last Days of Pompeii"), so getting to see actually go and visit the city was really special to me. Especially since it was one of the first archaeological sites I had ever learned about as a kid, and it is part of the reason I want to be an archaeologist today.
New/Exciting Course Abroad: I had taken a course called "Rome as a Living Museum" which focused on how the Popes and others in power had utilized and altered Roman sites and objects to fit their intended message for centuries. I honestly knew so little about the city of Rome after the fall of the empire, so I leaned so much in this class about the politics and history about what really happened in the city through the modern day. This was also another course that I went on many field studies with, which was amazing since I got to see places I normally wouldn't have gone to/ never knew it existed. From people like Pope Sixtus V to Mussolini, the city of Rome underwent many changes to fit the image that those in power wanted to portray which is what we really focused on. Overall though, all of the courses I took taught me so many things that I had never learned. I loved getting to actually go to places and see objects that I had learned about for years in person.