Ciao tutti!
My name is Isabella Spena (nickname is Bella), and I am a junior at Frederick Honors College and Pitt Business. I am pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, majoring in Accounting, minors in Italian and legal studies, and a Certificate in International Business. I am currently trying to figure out my exact career trajectory, but I am leaning toward a career in Business Law. A little more about me is that I love staying involved at Pitt! I am the Co-Vice President and Study Abroad ambassador for the Italian Club @Pitt, a Student Ambassador for the Honors College, a member of STEP@Pitt, and a sister of Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, to name a few things!
The program I am taking part in this semester is a Panther Program called the Global Business Institute. I chose this particular program because of its opportunity for students to have an internship abroad and pursue a Certificate in International Business. Pitt offers this program in various countries, yet I chose Florence, Italy, for various reasons beyond my Italian minor. I grew up in a household filled with Italian culture because my mother and father are of Italian descent. My father’s parents immigrated from Sicily in the late 1970s. Thus, the first thing I learned at a young age was to be proud of being Italian, from being from such a beautiful country. However, I have never been to Italy. I have been dreaming of the moment I could experience the culture and Italian lifestyle authentically from the source: this program is making that happen.
I have only been in Florence for nine days, but so far, the biggest similarity between my host institution and Pitt is the staff. Although the staff here is all Italian people, for the most part, besides our lovely Pitt faculty member Jenny McCord, they are all so welcoming and helpful. This dynamic of openness between faculty and students immediately put me at ease because it reminded me of all my professors and advisors back at Pitt! A huge difference is the city itself. I love my Pittsburgh and Cathy, but Florence is breathtaking. The architecture here and the amount of things they do to preserve this medieval city and its history are beyond impressive. My study centers are similar to Pitt classroom-wise but have gorgeous views of cobblestone streets and squares in Florence. As for classes, the class sizes are very small. The most people I have in class are twelve, while at Pitt, the smallest class I have ever taken was a class of twenty people.
My current living arrangement in Florence is a big three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in a neighborhood close to the center city portion of Florence. I have seven roommates, two of whom I share a room with. Half of us in the apartment are from Pitt, which made adjusting to Italy less scary, even though I had never met them. Luckily for me, even though living with seven other girls sounds like a lot, all of my roommates are very nice and conscientious, so we all make it pretty easy to live together. The neighborhood we are in is very local, and what I mean by that is that we mainly live with local Florentine people, which has been amazing in terms of experiencing Italian culture in a very authentic and un-touristic way. Living in Italy so far has mainly felt like a dream. I enjoy walking around everywhere, eating fantastic food, and practicing my Italian language skills. Some culture shocks still set in some days when it comes to which side of the road I should walk on or lacking air conditioning when it is a hundred degrees, but overall, I am beginning to notice how much I am falling in love with a city I have only known for nine days.
