In the gardens of the Palace of Versailles! The most beautiful place I have ever been!
Author: Olivia Lawrence | Majors: Accounting and Political Science
From reflecting back on this journey, I am so lucky to have experienced this once in a lifetime opportunity. Beginning last year when choosing the CIMBA Italy program, I knew the amazing journey I would have, and now I can say I have had that and more. When choosing this program, I was really attracted to the the intimacy of staying in a small Northern Italian town like Paderno Del Grappa. That aspect reigned true for all aspects of the study abroad experience. The classes and professors at CIMBA encouraged this idea of forming relationships with them and other students even though we weren’t there for an extensive amount of time. Being with the same 250 or so students and few professors on a small campus together allowed for great, long lasting relationships to be formed. There were multiple times where my professors would take me and my classmates out to coffee or to explore Paderno, and this allowed for more learning to occur as it was happening both in and out of the classroom. That small town and campus feel allowed for me to feel I was learning on such an individual bases which was a refreshing change from the University of Arkansas as it normally consists of bigger classes with more students. I feel the two classes I took, Intro to Law and Intro to Management, will advance me professionally as I got to learn about various business aspects in a real-world setting, and I’ll be able to apply that in years to come. In my classes we took alot of real world situations and broke them down such as real court cases or real business situations and then discussed based on that. That discussion based classroom rather than more of a notes and test environment allowed for me to see different perspectives and be able to discuss them which is something important for the real-world.
Outside of the classroom, I had amazing experiences taking in the culture of other places by simply just observing and immersing myself into it. We took public transportation everywhere which was something new to me, and it definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Even on those trains and such, talking to people next to me and learning about their lives and experiences from these different places allowed me to understand the culture in a new light. I also priortized eating all of the famous dishes and others favorite dishes while traveling. I would always ask the waiter or someone next to me what their favorite food was at various restaurants, and would always order that. I felt that trying to live the life of a local was the best way to immerse myself into the culture.
In terms of recommending study abroad itself to others, I would absolutely encourage someone to take the plunge and do it. I would also fully recommend the CIMBA program to someone. There is no other program that fully treats each student and encourages each student to truly find find themselves and search for that. All of the administration and professors priotrize the idea of travel and exploration and incorporate that into the classroom as well, making every aspect of the program exciting and of the same goal. Something that I do wish I had known before coming is that CIMBA encourages the idea of being independent, and will do what they can to assist, but want you to figure out all travel and exploration on your own. Most programs do not do this, and it is an amazing thing, but something to also be prepared for. This program is so amazing and truly encourages one to explore and push themselves to who they can be