First Day of Class at The Rome Center!
Author: Kerrigan Servati | Major: Architecture | Semester: Fall 2023
I am one month into what I am sure will be deemed as the best time of my life: studying abroad at the University of Arkansas Rome Center. Already, my life and adventures in Italy have far exceeded anything that I could’ve imagined, and I am looking forward to what is to come.
A requirement to graduate from the Architecture program here at the UofA is to spend a semester abroad – I mean, what an ideal requirement! This is a crucial experience for architecture students’ learning, enabling them to enhance their studies by experiencing the very pieces of architecture they have been studying for the last four years of architecture school.
Since it is a requirement for everyone in my architecture grade to study abroad, I get to spend time here with my classmates, whom I have grown close to over the past semesters in Fayetteville. Even though I get to share an apartment with the same friends that I shared a house with back in Fayetteville, I was shocked at how different living in Rome has been from living in Arkansas. From day one, we are thrown into the Italian lifestyle – sharing an apartment complex with Italian families and businesses. I am very thankful that we live in authentic apartments compared to dorms, where we would only be surrounded by other students in the same boat as us. My apartment is about a 20-minute walk to campus, a 7-minute walk to Vatican City, and a minute walk to multiple grocery stores / other businesses – in other words, the perfect location to experience life in Rome.
A part of the program is to spend the first month in a course labeled Architecture of the City, which focuses on visiting sites around Rome and completing sketches on location. It has felt like we have had our own tour guide of Rome for every class, our professor! Every lesson has genuinely been exciting, witnessing the buildings we have researched and learned from the first year onwards, except this time in person rather than on a PowerPoint. Some of my favorite stops so far have been The Pantheon, Church of St. Agnes and St. Ivo Alla Sapienza. After the four weeks, it was cool to step back and see all the work accomplished over the course and realize how much has already been seen in only one month.
Growing up in Texas and attending school in Arkansas, I have sometimes felt that I have grown up in a ‘bubble.’ Once you expand outside that bubble, you realize much more about yourself and the world. My goal is to partake in everything I can do while I am here. So far, we have spent weekends staying in Rome and traveling within Italy. There are so many parts of Italy to explore that might be less well known as Rome, Florence, or Venice. I’ve gotten to swim in caves along the Adriatic Sea towards the heel of the Italian boot, cook pasta with a local guide here in Rome, and miss multiple buses and trains all over the Tuscan region of Italy. One month in, I highly recommend studying abroad, especially at the Rome center. The center has everything set up to fully enhance your experience and make the adjustment as smooth as possible. My suggestion to those thinking about studying abroad is to have an open mind when coming. There are so many things and situations that might seem a little ‘uncomfortable’ by our standards but push you to truly experience life outside of what you are used to. Life in Italy is different than in America, but that is what makes it so great!