After a semester of studying in the historic district of Florence, Italy, a cohort of first-years at the Rhode Island School of Design stepped foot in Providence for the first time. The students are part of RISD’s new First Year in Florence program, which will be sending another group of 20 first-years to Florence in the spring.
The curriculum for the new program is modeled after RISD’s Experimental and Foundation Studies program, which consists of three first-year studios and two liberal arts courses. In Providence, all RISD first-years are automatically enrolled in three foundational courses — drawing, design and spatial dynamics — that they take concurrently. But in Florence, the courses are split into four-week modules, and each course is taken in succession.
