READ THIS POST IF INTERESTED IN STUDY ABROAD AS A STUDENT
When you go to orientation to study abroad, they go through section about not setting your expectations too high before you leave. Many people will have this "perfect" program set list or program group created in their mind and become distraught to find that reality is not what their imagination made it out to be. I tried my hardest to not day dream about what Italy would be like buuutt... how could I not?! This was something I had never experienced so of course I planned out in my head how I thought every little detail would be executed.
Boy did my little world come crashing down. Now, full disclosure: this next section might sound like I'm complaining or being overdramatic. So stop reading here if you don't want to hear about the finite details of a school program abroad. If you do, great! Brace yourself for some reading.
Doing a summer program abroad for 4 weeks is no walk in the park. I am lucky in that the excursions are included in my tuition fees and those destinations are my quote on quote "classrooms," but its still a classroom. There's still a tight schedule to keep and projects to complete. And since the courses I am taking total 6 credit hours in 4 weeks, it's fast paced. We never take two days to analyze a vast cathedral or even an entire town. We do it in one day! Here's a little taste of the schedule I have found that works for me and how I do all my homework.
Try (bless my heart, I try) to get up at 6:00am every morning. I can workout, talk to my family, shower, or do reading/ annotating from our online textbooks. Usually get out the door by 10 at the latest to meet with professor. Spend around 3 hours doing a class in the morning time, have a break for about 2 hours (we once got a 4 hour break), and then spending the late afternoon doing more class time. Our schedules vary with the inclusion of a workshop or excursion to a neighboring city an hour bus ride away.. We almost always have dinner and lunch off to go get something to eat. Not too shabby, right? Right! Now let's throw in the homework.
We have anywhere from 2 long chapters to 6 chapters of textbook reading on food history, history of Siena and Florence, and any art/ architecture information. We are supposed to take good notes on these. We also have to take notes while walking around the town during "class time." Whenever we go to a market or museum or church, we have to do an analysis paper on that thing (on top of all the notes we're already taking). We also have to keep a journal that cites our readings and reflects (meaningful, collegiate level, in-depth reflection) on each activity done each day. Those are due every week. Our group also has 8 Italian lessons spread throughout the 4 weeks here. And lastly, we have a group project and individual project that's food based and art based. Each have to be completed in our spare time and we have to speak about each one for 5-8 minutes on our last day.
So I'm a little busy and a LOT tired from the average 6 miles of walking we do every day. I definitely did NOT include that whole studying and homework thing into my ideal trip to Italy. It's not just a vacation where we get tours everywhere and go to fancy restaurants. I have fun and I'm learning like crazy, but the downtime is spent doing homework in my room, shopping at the insanely crowded grocery store, or napping. Not to dis anyone either, but our faculty that is leading this program has been very vague with her requirments on assignments and then gets mad at us for not doing what she never stated she wanted us to do. There's a lot of trying to infer what she wants.
So yeah! Italy= awesomesauce place! But school is school no matter where you go.
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