In Florence, I am taking a wide variety of classes that are getting me accustomed to Italian culture and history, as well as more major specific courses for my business degree. I am taking an Italian language class, where I am learning basic Italian which has helped me in daily interactions throughout my time abroad. I am taking a cross-cultural psychology course, which has given me an in-depth view of Italian culture as well as comparing it to my own American culture and looking at the similarities and differences. I am taking a Renaissance art history course, which has been one of my favorites, as it involves a lot of site visits to museums and basilicas where I can see the actual architecture and art pieces that we discuss in class, as well as understand the context of these things within a historical lens. Finally, I am taking international marketing, where I am learning how integrating into an international market is different from integrating into a company’s domestic market, and creating our own marketing strategy to bring a US company to the Italian market.
I would say a few key strengths you need to be successful in this academic environment are organization and time management. I would say organization is key because although there may seem like there are not as many graded assignments as there are in my typical semester, a lot of the work comes in making sure you’re doing out of class work and really taking in all of the site visits and information being talked about in class. It is key to keep all your notes and observations organized, as this is crucial to exams and presentations when we have them. I would also say time management is crucial in this environment, since you have to balance things in a different way then you would in a typical semester. On one hand, you are in a beautiful Italian city and wanna take in and experience all you can, but on the other you are still a student who needs to keep their grades up and get assignments in on time. The key to this is finding good study spots and taking advantage of your free time between classes during the week to make sure you stay on track. My favorite study spots I have found are an outdoor library with beautiful views of the Duomo, and a movie theatre that doubles as a free seating area when not playing a movie. Finding places unique to Florence makes studying and doing work seem more like I am still embracing Italian culture, while still being able to get all my work done.
While I do not know my specific Clifton Strengths, I think leveraging these skills to make your time better for you personally in this program is extremely important. I think knowing which skills you excel at can give you a good base of how you will strategize your school education as well as your cultural education abroad. By knowing how you excel, it can make it easier to know what the best strategy for school will be for you.
What I have noticed about the dynamics about this academic culture is that it is more discussion based and more hands-on than I’ve had in classes at home. I would say most of my classes feel more like open dialogues than lectures, and especially since classes are smaller, you develop more of a relationship with your professor and class. This allows for more personalization in lecture and more conversational format. As for more hands-on learning, I am going on site-visits in all the classes I am taking. Getting to see these ideas we are talking about in the classroom in the real world is something we don’t often do at home, but is something I am really enjoying about the class styles here.