A letter to my pre-departure self,
You are about to embark on an incredible journey of once-in-a-lifetime experiences! You will travel up and down Italy, from Sicily to Venice. You will hike to the highest peak in Interlaken, watch the Eifel Tower sparkle, attend an opera in Vienna, and celebrate Easter with the Pope at the Vatican. The best part is you get to do all of this with your best friends!
These experiences will teach you so much. You will learn how to plan ahead and work with others. Planning trips takes more work than it seems, but each trip will help you grow your confidence.
You will also learn to be more independent. When you first arrive in Italy, you may feel overwhelmed and out of place. You might feel intimidated to go to a cafe by yourself or by the Vespas flying past you as you walk down the street. As the days and weeks pass, you will feel more comfortable and optimistic. You will be able to order food in Italian, navigate new cities and countries safely, and even do a solo trip!
At the beginning of the program, I wish I could tell myself that your worries now will all prove not to be true. You will make your best friends, and you will be able to travel. Also, you do remember the Italian you learned in high school!
Something that will surprise you about this global experience is how vastly different it will be from your previous global experience in the International Internship Program in Berlin, Germany (I was in Germany this past summer, where I worked as a Finance and Accounting Intern for Sirius Facilities GmbH. This experience was very immersive – I had a 40-hour work week in an office completely filled with Germans – and I don’t speak any German)! In Italy, your experience will be almost completely different because there are thousands of Americans studying abroad in Florence. Instead of being completely immersed with locals, you will have classes with other Americans and live with other Americans.
Don’t be sad that the semester is almost over, but be grateful for this experience. Even when the semester is over, you can carry all of your experiences with you and apply everything you learned when you get back to America. Remember to be confident, trust yourself and your abilities, and believe in yourself in new situations.
See you soon!
Caroline
