This is after our tour of the Colosseum and Roman Forum.

Author: Lauren Westfall | Major: Mechanical Engineering

My name is Lauren Westfall and I participated in the University of Arkansas Rome Center’s Engineering Economic Analysis course during the 2022 May Intersession in Rome, Italy. I am a freshman in the College of Engineering and I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering.

I chose this program because I wanted to study abroad, but only for a short amount of time in case it was not for me. This program allowed me to gain a new perspective on how engineering works in other countries and through our site visits I was able to realize the amount of opportunities I will have as a Mechanical Engineer someday. The teacher, Dr. Tish Pohl, and my fellow classmates made this experience even better as we did everything together. I was able to live with all four of the girls in my program and we got really close which made taking the class even more fun. The class itself consisted of two sessions a day, two hours in the morning and two after lunch, which is a bit different than what I was used to, but it gave us enough time to learn the material and do our homework in class in case we needed help.

Outside of class, we visited all of the typical sights of Rome, such as the Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Roman Forum, Spanish Steps, and we saw the Pope. We walked about 20,000 steps a day going to class, getting lunch and dinner, grabbing gelato, and going sightseeing. We took a day trip to Florence on our first weekend and due to a national holiday, we had a four day weekend our second week so we took a four day trip to Vico Equense on the Amalfi Coast. One of my favorite things about this program was the ability to plan trips on the weekends to different places in Italy with our group.

I would absolutely recommend this program to any engineer that is looking to get credit hours and dip their toes into study abroad. Some advice I have for this program is to take advantage of your weekends because that is your chance to explore outside of Rome and the program is so short that you only have two of them. I also cannot emphasize enough to bring good walking shoes, comfy and airy clothes, and to make the most of the trip because it will go by extremely fast. I wish I had known how amazing the Rome Center staff was before I got to Rome because that would have eased so many nerves going into this trip. The staff helped with general things like understanding the public transport system and they also gave recommendations for weekend trips. They became our friends and we all felt like they really cared about us after just one day because they make their students their priority.

This trip has been one of the highlights of my college experience and I hope I can go on another study abroad trip before I graduate!