Seeing a Future in Florence

Ciao! As I reflect back on the last four out of six weeks of the program, I can confidently say that doing this program has changed my life. The “Pitt in Florence” program consists of two 3-credit courses with a variety of course choices from Oil Painting to Cross-cultural Psychology. Through these last four weeks, I have not only come to meet amazing students and people from my program, but also residents from Florence itself. Within the first week, I had met a friend that I can honestly say I will have for life. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Italy, and had recently moved back to Florence after spending a few years in the states. Her parents had met in Florence where her mother had lived and father had studied abroad during his Master’s degree. She lived in Florence during her childhood until high school when her family moved to the states temporarily, and back and forth from Florence to the states she traveled. Within the second week, we had become instant friends and she introduced me to many places in and people from Florence that gave me a more local experience of the city. From there, I became friends with people that she had met who had studied abroad in previous years and years later came back to live in Florence- a move that I have considered making after the last few weeks. As I began to meet new people from Florence, I began to appreciate my experience in Florence more and more. Being an “American” abroad had become a lot less daunting as I began to become more immersed in Italian culture, not just the study abroad environment. The language barrier was my biggest fear studying in Italy as I did not know much coming into the country at all. However, as I began to gain confidence in communicating with locals and bilingual individuals who I had met, the language barrier did not hinder my experience. The best thing I did while I was there was putting myself out there to truly learn the customs and culture of Florence, and meet people that helped me to do that. With two more weeks left, I plan to appreciate my time with my new friends rather than dwell over the fact of leaving. Now I can leave Italy knowing I always have friends across the world to come back to.