Walking through the streets of Kensington

Author: Abby Malone | Major: Marketing | Semester: Summer 2023

My name is Abby Malone and I studied abroad this summer on the AIFS Fashion Marketing Travel + Study Summer 2023 program. Through this program, I visited London, Paris, Milan, and Florence. I am an incoming senior in the Walton College studying Marketing with minors in Supply Chain Management and Event Management.

I chose this program because, as a Marketing major, my goal is to experience as many different areas of marketing as I can before graduating. This includes gaining insights into a variety of industries. In the marketing program, there is not a class that has a focus on fashion, which is an industry I am interested in potentially pursuing. This program gave me the opportunity to learn something I would not have learned otherwise, had I not participated in this experience. I know this has assisted in my pursuit of my academic and professional goals.

For these reasons, the Fashion Marketing program, which focuses on marketing and communication strategies in the fashion industry, caught my attention. I was also intrigued by the travel aspect of the program. As part of the program, we traveled to multiple European fashion capitals to see for ourselves what we were learning in class. In class, we would discuss the various marketing strategies of many fashion companies and luxury fashion houses. After class, we would go to museums, exhibits, or tours where we would be able to further understand the concepts discussed in class. Our professor also traveled with us, which provided us the opportunity to have her with us on these out-of-class tours.

I truly enjoyed the class I took through this program. Our professor, Nastaran RichardsCarpenter, is an associate professor in marketing and fashion management at London Metropolitan University. She was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about the topics we discussed and made class something your wanted to attend. Classes were primarily lecture based, with some discussion throughout. While Professor Nas had, of course, a lot of knowledge on the topics through her research, learning about the industry by listening to stories of her lived experience is what I enjoyed most. Professor Nas has worked in so many avenues of fashion marketing and it truly showed through her passion for teaching.

Outside of class and visiting museums and exhibits, we were able to explore the cities. One of my personal goals during my time studying abroad was to immerse myself into the city I was in. Because of this, a lot of our time wasn’t necessarily spent doing all the tourist things, but rather trying to learn and experience the area as a local. What are the best coffeeshops? What are the best restaurants off the beaten path? What if we just walk around and see what catches our eye? These were all questions I and the friends I made would ask ourselves throughout our day. While of course we still participated in plenty of the given tourist attractions, some of my favorite moments were when we would walk around the local park with our coffee or go to the local cafes and just take it all in.

One of my favorite things about each city was the markets. My personal favorite markets were in London. If you ever find yourself there, be sure to get the chocolate covered strawberries from Borough Market. There were multiple days throughout out time in London that we would be walking around the city or just get out of a museum tour and find ourselves on the next train to the market for another cup of chocolate strawberries.

Another favorite day of mine is the impromptu trip to Zurich, Switzerland I went on with 3 other girls from the program. In Europe, it is so easy to travel to different countries and cities. While we were in Milan, we had a free day to explore. We realized that we were only a few hours away from Zurich by train and decided the day before we left to go. I am so glad we did because it was such a great trip. The best word I can use to describe it is peaceful. Each city in Europe had such a distinct energy to it, and I truly enjoyed my short time in Zurich. Travelling throughout Europe is also (usually) very easy and inexpensive compared to the states. Especially without large luggage, travel days tend to be relatively smooth. Of course this depends on the train line and destination, but overall, my experience with travelling and public transportation was successful.

Now that my time abroad has come to an end, I cannot recommend studying abroad enough. If you have any inclination at all to do it … do it. It is such a unique time of your life and the growth you will experience is nothing you can expect. It sounds very cliché, but I learned more about myself and others in this short amount of time than I ever thought possible. If you are nervous about going abroad, I highly recommend going in a group. Since this was an external program, I had the opportunity to meet people from many different universities with the safety net of a study abroad program. Doing this allows you to meet many new people and see a new part of the world in a way that is maybe just a little less scary.

Studying abroad is one of the best decisions I have made in college and I couldn’t recommend it enough.