We are going into our 4th week of classes this week in Florence, and so far my classes have been great. This semester I am taking International Marketing, International Finance, Art History and Italian.
My favorite class is Art History. I love walking around the city and learning about all the different landmarks and hidden stories of the building and art in Florence. Our teacher is so knowledgable and it is such a unique experience to be learning art history in a place that was the center of the Renaissance. My favorite part of the class has been learning about the Medici family in Florence. They have such an interesting history here and are responsible for commissioning so many famous and history important art pieces in Florence and around Europe. I am also looking forward to visiting the Uffizi Gallery for this class and seeing Michelangelo’s David statue for this class.
I have also really been enjoying our Italian class. It is really fun that it is a Pitt based class because we get to see all of our Pitt classmates 3 times a week. Jenny is such an amazing teacher and she is so fun to learn from. It’s been really nice to begin to learn the basics of Italian and practice it when we leave the classroom. It’s been a little challenging for me because I have never taken a language that is rooted from Latin, but the class is structured so well I have been able to pick it up quickly. We have also done a walking trip to the local library to see good places to study and practice ordering our own coffees. Everything that we learn in Italian is so applicable and easy to practice outside the classroom, I always leave with a smile on my face.
International Finance and International Marketing have also been very interesting. In finance we have begun to learn about different conversation rates and how options and trading works between different countries. It has been really interesting to learn about and build my knowledge from my finance classes at Pitt abroad. Similarly with International Marketing we have been discussing how and why brands have to develop their marketing strategies when expanding their business abroad. We have practiced a lot of presentations about these topics which has been very helpful and interesting as well.
Taking classes abroad has opened me up to a lot of new perspectives and ideas. I think that some key things I have found I need to be successful here are time management and focus. It can be hard to balance both classes and all the other amazing things about being abroad, but ultimately I have found everything in my classes to be so interesting that taking time to practice those things has been fun. The work-life balance is very different in Italy too, so I feel like we have had less homework and more free time for us to practice things on our own. I have noticed I really have enjoyed a lot of the readings in all my classes because they are so relevant to the life I am living here. The professors here have been great and I love all my classes. I am excited to keep learning about the topics I have chosen to study and can’t wait to bring that knowledge back to Pitt.
