As the academic year closes and students return to their homes across Italy and the world, the time has come for the interns of the Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development (CCSDD) to say the proverbial arrivederci to our adopted home of Bologna and reflect on our shared experience working for the CCSDD.

An internship with the CCSDD is an opportunity for students from both the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the University of Bologna (Università di Bologna), to gain practical experience in constitutional law, democratization, civil society development, and a host of related subjects. Learning about these issues is done through the entire intern experience, whether it is through research, communications, event-planning, seminars and conferences, or reading the wealth of academic material that is produced by the scholars of the CCSDD. In addition, the internship is not static, but fluid. It offers interns with a lot of different avenues to contribute to its academic work. For example, despite being the Communications Manager for the CCSDD, I was able to conduct research for Dr. Francesco Biagi on Morocco for the Center's project, "Transitional Law and the Challenge of the Arab Spring."

All in all, if students have the desire to learn more about the Center's work, its mission, and its programs, there is no better opportunity than to intern at the CCSDD for a semester or for the academic year. The internship program provides students with intimate access to the work that the Center is doing, and invites them to participate and take part in it. It is an internship that requires one to be focused and motivated, but at its completion, you will have come away with so much more than in other internship programs. And with that, ciao Bologna!