A Love Letter to the Tandem Night
An opinion piece by Evangeline Welch, Bryn Mawr College
Evangeline, a former student of the Summer 2026 Intensive Italian Language through Culture program, spent a few weeks in Perugia honing her Italian language skills before heading to graduate school. Here, she shares her thoughts on the Tandem program and the meaningful friendships she made along the way.
The First Tandem Night
The Tuesday evening of our second week of classes in the Intensive Italian Program, my classmates and I were walking together from our apartments to our very first Tandem meeting. We were all nervous: speaking with Italian students, rather than our professors, would certainly challenge our Italian and push us out of our comfort zone. However, these Tuesday Tandem meetings quickly became the highlight of our weeks and created friendships none of us had expected.
Università per Stranieri di Perugia
Most of the students who participated in Tandem with us, a weekly get-together (and aperitivo) between Italian university students and the Intensive Italian through Culture Summer Program students at the Umbra Institute, studied at Perugia’s Università per Stranieri. Much like the mission of the university itself, the students we met with were more than willing to teach us about Italian customs, culture (and, of course, slang) and were also curious to learn about our backgrounds and the way our lives and schooling differed from theirs, or perhaps even the ways in which they were similar. This cultural exchange is something that cannot be found in a classroom: the organic nature of the Tandem meetings encouraged everyone to express ourselves freely, naturally find people with whom we shared interests, and develop a comfort knowing that if we made mistakes, our friends would help us learn.
Eramus+
Many of the Italian students who participated in Tandem had also been Erasmus+ students, a program which allows European students to study in other European countries. Like us, they understood the value of studying abroad and what could maximize the experience. Not only did we get to hear about their experiences living and studying in Perugia, but we talked about where we all are from, where we have traveled to, and our personal motivations and inspirations in exploring outside of our birthplaces. From these shared experiences we were able to grow our connections even deeper and turn Tandem into friendship.
Friendship in Perugia
As I prepare to leave Perugia, my hardest goodbyes will be to my professors, classmates, and friends I made at Tandem. Our Tuesday Tandems developed into dinners, movie nights, and excited chats when we ran into each other in the city. I cannot imagine my experience in Perugia without these friendships: they truly made my study abroad in Italy so wonderful. I have learned so much from each of them and found comfort and similarities between us that I would have never expected when I walked up Via Bartolo that first Tuesday. Despite my nervousness that day, I am so grateful I was open to these friendships and that they were able to develop beyond our aperitivi. I hope that these friendships last beyond Perugia and serve as reminders of all that I have learned in Italy.