There's a spot by the San Lorenzo Street Market - right on the front steps - where Mary Springer likes to sketch.
It's one of the busiest areas in Florence, Italy, and Springer's eye finds a dozen subjects amid its bustle.
"If I'm lucky," she said, "someone might sit still long enough for me to make an adequate study."
At Doane, her first art history and religious studies courses gave her a passion.
She wasn't deterred by the fact that Doane doesn't have a formal art history major - she's expanding the art history program through independent studies, summer projects and French reading.
Because she hopes to work with ancient Christian art someday, her official majors are art and religious studies.
Valerie Knobel, instructor of art, suggested Studio Art Centers International (SACI), an American school in Florence with approximately 150 students and a first-class reputation.
SACI is both as hard and remarkable as Springer envisioned. The language barrier adds weight to her coursework.
But studying art history in Italy is like stepping inside it, she said.
"...Like a three-dimensional and interactive history book open all the time... Everything I've studied in books is here."
In Rome she sketched St. Peter's Basilica; in Venice the San Marco. She has traveled to the Medici Villas, Pisa, Ravenna, Cinque terra and Lucca. She has seen the David, Sistine Chapel, and works by Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci with her own eye.
"It's hard to register sometimes where I am and what I am seeing."
Knobel hopes Springer's semester will start a trend that leads to an affiliation between SACI and Doane, and a natural draw for art students.
Springer could give a strong testimonial.
"You learn so much about a new culture, language and new ways of seeing the world."
She never thought she would converse in Italian. She didn't know that she would stand, transfixed, in Ireland, taking in its rolling, rugged beauty.
She'll carry the experiences to graduate school.
She plans to teach on the collegiate level, but also considers museum work or on-site archaeology/art history work ideal.
"I don't think I'll ever be able to capture what I have seen. I think all I can capture is my experience."