A beautiful day at the Colosseum

Author: Anna Roach | Major: International Studies

My love for connections across cultural lines is what inspired me to pursue an education in international studies and dedicate my summer to first-hand experience abroad. After a year of staying in the tight circle of my hometown-turned-college town, the world was feeling small and the passion I once felt for global connection was beginning to dwindle. I also found myself at a crossroads between the English and History routes which I could add to my major, and I figured by studying creative writing in the heart of European history, I would be able to come to a clear decision about the rest of my education. My intent in studying abroad was to hopefully revive this passion, as well as to help navigate the direction I will take my studies.

I took two five-week courses at John Cabot University in Rome. One was a creative writing workshop, during which I was given a daily prompt and told to run with whatever idea came to my mind. My biggest takeaway from this course was the realization that I have all the tools and capabilities necessary to tell a story, all I have to do is write it. Tossing around possible twists and turns while trying to stay true to the message I wanted to convey was an enjoyable and fulfilling practice. The other course I took was Introductory Italian, and by the end of the five weeks, I was able to communicate-slowly and in fragments-with the local community. This was especially helpful when my friends and I needed a taxi or other instances when we had to communicate with people of lower education. This was one of the most difficult courses I have taken, but also one of my absolute favorites. My “Professoressa” and I had the best conversations and she would take us out into the community each week to build a direct and hands-on relationship with the culture and a realistic environment to practice the language.

One of my favorite things to say while abroad that my friends and I caught ourselves declaring multiple times a day was “Some things are just universal.” While this was largely a joke and a way for us to find little pieces of home in unfamiliar places, it also speaks to my passion for identifying and building connections across cultural barriers. I find the existence of experiences and ideas across various cultures inspiring because even in a globalized world, we still manage to paint our differences as greater than our similarities and settle for broad generalizations.

An awakening of my passion for international studies was an expected outcome, but what I never expected were the repeated revelations I had about the American lifestyle. One of which was regarding means of transportation. In practically every city we visited, we walked everywhere. There are obvious benefits of this such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but there are other small benefits that I had not thought of before. My friends and I unanimously agreed that walking everywhere was better for our health and our headspace and we could feel it. Walking was also good for small business owners as people would inevitably pass by their shops on their daily routes, and rather than having to park a car to go inside, they could simply walk right in.

Italian culture was diverse and specialized between regions, but one common trait was the appreciation and practice of slowing down. While I expected Rome to function like an American city with bustling crowds and short tempers, my experience was completely different. My speed-walking habits stuck out like a sore thumb in the easy-going flow of pedestrian traffic. It is conventional there to talk for hours after finishing your meal before asking for a check. They allow themselves to sit and rest to take their coffee even when it’s just a quick stop on their way to work. Through their example, I trained myself to stop anticipating the result of things and living for the destination, but instead to embrace transition time and truly practice living in the moment.

I also noticed that the bigger-is-better mindset of American culture was not apparent in Italy. They drove appropriately small cars, took espresso rather than American coffee with added milk and sugar, and lived an overall spatially smaller lifestyle. The coalition of these two differences was most apparent to me in the culture surrounding alcohol in Italy. The evidence of alcohol abuse and binge drinking is easy to find as a college student at an SEC school and is far too normalized in my eyes. In Italy, they drink at all times of the day, but in small doses. The purpose shifts from the American way of drinking to get drunk, to instead drinking to enjoy the taste and the social environment just a little more. Through this change, I felt a new understanding of both the tendency towards excess and the focus on ends rather than the means in American culture.

Another unexpected outcome of my time in Rome was the amount that I learned about myself. In retrospect, this was likely because the stark change in my external environment caused a greater reliance on the certainty and consistency of my internal environment. I felt more in tune with myself than I have in a long time. I became reacquainted with my desire to live an interesting life, to take risks, and to create. My connection to art and the universal nature of its effectiveness was evident as various forms of art decorated every corner of the city from breathtaking cathedrals, to the abundant graffiti. Through all of the Italian friends I made, I learned that my heart is filled more by the people than the places that surround me.

The most impactful friendship I built abroad was with a 23 year-old girl named Chia. She moved to Rome at 16 to dance and fell in love with the city. She quickly decided to move there and has since pursued many different careers from getting her pilot’s license to recently getting one of her novels picked up by a publishing company. I shared a lot of my writing with her throughout my creative writing workshop, and she gave great feedback. Before Chia, I had never met anyone who shared a common artistic vision with me. It felt like she knew what I was trying to say before I could even find the right words to do so.

This friendship means so much to me because my art, whether it’s my writing, the music I create, or my paintings, have been largely kept in the dark. This part of my life is so personal and sensitive, that it feels safe to keep it private. For a stranger living in another country to find understanding and admiration in my art, flipped a switch in me that I had never touched before. Suddenly my need to create and to be understood became more illuminated than ever and I felt a certainty that this sense of purpose would not go away. Artistic expression, and understanding across cultures will always be a driving force in my life.

There is nothing anyone could have told me that could have prepared me for the countless memories, friendships, and epiphanies that I made in Rome. With these new experiences I feel a revival of motivation in my studies this fall. I am incredibly grateful for the Honors College Fellowship for allowing me to experience two months of repeated revelations, life-changing connections, and memories that will last me the rest of my life.