Author: Anna Buckley | Major: Finance
My name is Anna Buckley and I am an honors student in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. My major is finance and my minor is marketing. I spent the spring semester of my junior year studying abroad in Italy at the University of Arkansas Rome Center.
I chose to study abroad at the Rome Center since it is a part of the University of Arkansas and credits could easily transfer, the office of study abroad could easily inform me about the program, and my same email address and Blackboard account would be used. Overall, the Rome Center seemed like the choice that made the most sense to me.
The program advanced my academic and professional goals by exposing me to class material that I had not had the opportunity to learn before and will apply to the rest of my college classes as well as throughout my life and in my future career. For example, one of my classes dove deeply into analyzing and predicting trends. I found learning this information to be extremely interesting and felt the knowledge equipped me with an edge. I will absolutely apply it outside of the classroom.
I took four classes at the Rome Center which all counted towards my elective credits as well as one online class. The four classes taken in Rome were To Rome With Love, Evil and Good, Fashion Styling, and Trend Forecasting. The curriculum for the To Rome With Love course consisted of half culture and half language. The course easily took the place as my favorite while abroad. The culture half of the course consisted of a neighborhood tour, food tour, cooking class, and many guest speakers. The Evil and Good course I took was a philosophy course. I have never taken a philosophy course before. The material was new and interesting to me and challenged my ways of thinking while abroad. As for the fashion courses, I was particularly excited for them when I was coming into study abroad. The chance to study fashion, for the first time ever, while in one of the most fashionable cities in the world was an incredible experience. In Fashion Styling we learned the details that a fashion stylist must consider, and focused on those individual elements. For our final, we applied what we learned throughout the semester in a fashion shoot. From coming up with the theme, then picking outfits, the model, hair, makeup, set design, and much more, we successfully acted as fashion stylists. In Trend Forecasting we analyzed trends throughout various decades as well as trends emerging today. We learned that a trend does not only apply to one category such as fashion, but it will also be seen in everything from food to cars to interior design and much more.
My instructors at the Rome Center were great. They cared deeply about showing us as much about their rich Italian culture as possible. They were also very knowledgeable about what they taught, and the small class sizes made it easy for them to make sure every student was understanding the curriculum.
One experience I had outside of class was attending an orchestra concert in a church in Venice. My roommates and I stumbled across the flier outside of the church during the day and saw that one of the performances was for the same night. It is not something we would have normally sought out; however, we decided to attend and it was a great experience. The music filled the church and left us in awe. The experience enhanced our appreciation for the already magical city and allowed us to appreciate the architecture, art, and music of Venice in a unique way.
I would absolutely recommend spending a semester at the University of Arkansas Rome Center. The campus itself is situated within a palace. Great halls turned classrooms boast ceilings covered in frescoes and curtains draped with gorgeous fabrics. The campus alone is reason enough to join the program. I also highly recommend spending an entire semester abroad, if possible. Summer sessions and intersessions are good alternatives, but nothing allows you to integrate into the culture of your city quite like the 16 weeks of a semester. A semester allows you plenty of time to learn about your own city and really feel like it is home while also exploring countless other cities around Europe. I visited 35 new places in Europe, including 10 countries, and will always consider Rome to be my second home. I can’t wait to go back.