on a rooftop in Venice, Italy

Author: Sarah Johnson | Major: Marketing and Graphic Design

ACADEMICS

I chose CIMBA Italy as my study abroad program because of the opportunities it gave me to travel and the academics offered in the program. Having the ability to do my own traveling while on study abroad was very impactful to my decision on what program I wanted to participate in. CIMBA gave me the chance to travel to the location, and with the people, of my choice each weekend. CIMBA was a month long program, we had class each week from Monday through Thursday at lunch and had the remaining 3.5 days to travel. This gave us the perfect amount of time to explore other European cities. Another deciding factor in my decision to attend CIMBA was the classes it offered. While the program focussed its courses on business and engineering, students from all majors attended. I was able to take a class called The Global Consumer which was taught by the University of Arkansas’ very own Molly Rapert. In this course we discussed the economic, political, and social structures within Italy, China, and Africa, and it counted towards my upper level Marketing electives as a marketing major. This class opened my eyes up to the world around me that I hadn’t even realized I was missing but now am shocked I didn’t know about previously. Global Consumer was one of my favorite classes I have taken thus far in college and I hope to continue taking courses taught by Professor Rapert during my future semesters back in Fayetteville. Apart from our regular class discussion part of our course work for Global Consumer included creating content and learning the different functionalities of LinkedIn. The things I learned in this portion of the class I will be able to easily carry over into my future academic and professional career. I also took Mythology taught by University of Kansas professor, Tara Welch, in which we talked about Greek and Roman myths and took class trips to sites where we saw artwork and artifacts of the time. I loved both of the classes I took at CIMBA. I learned so much from each of them and would recommend the classes to anyone who receives the chance to take them.

CULTURE

The beautiful architecture and art I was able to see while studying abroad in Italy was incredible and to make it even better, it was paired with eating wonderful Italian food each day. CIMBA’s campus is located in a small town north of Venice next to the Alps called Paderno del Grappa. This tiny town was my home for just over a month and the close knit community allowed me to truly feel like I was living in Italy. It was my goal to not feel like a tourist during my entire experience, but there are so many notable cities in Italy that were still on my list of “must sees” while I was there. From Venice, to Florence, to Rome, each one was amazing in its own way and held so much beauty and history. One of my favorite parts of being in Italy was how easily accessible public transportation to get to major cities was. Italy has massive infrastructure supporting public transportation and for a majority of our travel weekends we were able to take the trains from our small local train station, CastelFranco, and make it to larger cities including Venice, Rome, and Florence.

ADVICE

I cannot rave enough about how much I enjoyed my study abroad experience. It impacted me unlike anything I had ever experienced and I will never forget the places and people I interacted with along the way. I would recommend anyone with the chance to study abroad to jump at the opportunity. One thing I will say I wish I had known more of before I went was the language. While I was easily able to get around not being able to speak much of the Italian language outside of “hello” and “thank you” I do wish I had taken some “survival Italian” to know some phrases and numbers before being thrown into interacting with native Italian speakers. I had meant to spend the semester before I left using different language apps to build my knowledge but time catches up with you quickly and before I knew it I had only finished unit 1 and I was on my plane to Venice! Definitely take the time out of your day, even if it’s only for 5 or 10 minutes to just learn a word or two and slowly build up more of a background on the language but don’t keep yourself away from study abroad because you aren’t fluent in the language! Many residents understand that you are a student and are excited to see that you chose their country to come study in.