My time abroad has given me the fantastic opportunity to grow and develop skills in cultural development, business, and film. The experiences I’ve been able to have so far between my classes, my internship, and traveling while abroad have been phenomenal in forcing me to work outside of my comfort zone and really hone in on a number of these skills.

Most of the skills I’ve developed in Florence, especially initially, have been transferable, or “soft” skills. These have ranged from picking up on small Italian cultural differences, going out of my way to meet new people, as well as learning new marketing and HR concepts, and working on bridging cultural gaps. The “hard” skills I’ve begun to develop have included starting to learn the Italian language and familiarizing myself with new software at my internship. Altogether, this has led me to become more confident in my abilities when abroad or at home.

Along with this growth in soft and hard skills, I’ve become much more comfortable in navigating cross-cultural situations. My understanding of differences between Italian (or, at least Tuscan) and American culture is significantly better than it was at the beginning of January. A large part of this has to do with my almost daily interactions with my supervisor and boss at Ecoframes. Both of them make a great effort not only to overwork the language barrier with me but also to key me into Florence’s norms. This has greatly impacted my understanding of the city, region, and country and has helped me feel much more at home during my time in Florence.