Ciao! Studying abroad has taught me many skills that I didn’t even know I needed to develop. My ability to adjust and just take things on the chin has improved greatly throughout my time. I have had plenty of travel experiences that have gone not as planned or plenty of situations I have gotten into where I don’t know exactly what to do and I have been a lot more prepared for these interactions or situations because of my experience abroad. For example, on my first weekend abroad my roommates and I decided to travel to Vienna in Austria, and this was most of our first time booking our travel, planning the trip, and having all the responsibility to ourselves. Well, our travel plan included a 2:45 am bus ride to Rome that was genuinely one of the most stressful experiences of my life. As someone who hasn’t traveled outside of the United States a ton, this was an interesting first experience, to say the least. I was extremely worried about getting pickpocketed and being the only one on the entire bus who was stuck in the ultimate middle seat with two people on each side of me. This experience, was horrible, but looking back at it, it is a great story, and it taught me a lot about how I like to travel and how I want to plan my trips out for the rest of the semester. Another soft skill I think I have developed is a lot more awareness and accountability. I am not always someone who is the most aware of my surroundings, however, this trip has seen me get a lot better at being aware of myself and others in an unfamiliar environment. For example, when I am in a restaurant or a public place, I am much more conscious about how loud I am speaking and making sure I am respectful to all the locals or workers around me. The most obvious hard skill that I have developed is language proficiency, but I think that is just a common answer that everyone abroad is developing.
Tower Bridge in London!
Another skill I have been developing through these posts is blogging. I had no experience doing any blog work or having to write out my experiences in a blog format so writing these has not only helped develop my blogging skills but also just my general writing skills. I have never considered myself the best writer, however, I would like to think that throughout these posts I have become a better writer, and I look forward to getting even better while I finish the rest of the posts. I think good and bad interactions both have had a huge impact on shaping me, so I’ll start with the good ones. I have enjoyed having good conversations with all of the locals, it’s been nice to compare how certain things are in Italy and surrounding countries compared to how they are in the States. It has shown me how different things truly are, and I can’t say I expected it. However, I believe the bad interactions have been more important for my personal development. As a foreigner, I am always trying to learn how to better represent myself in a foreign country and usually, a bad interaction is the cause of my lack of knowledge, so as a result, every interaction is just a teaching moment for me. I am looking forward to learning many more skills in my last month and a half here and I hope I have learned enough from the bad interactions to only have good ones from here on out, but I guess we will see soon enough. Arrivederci for now!
Me and some of my Pitt roommates in Tromso, Norway for Spring Break