After class one day we decided to go paragliding off of Mount Grappa

Author: Krug Gunnar | Major: Finance

I have always been amazed looking at pictures on Instagram of the European countries never believing I would one day spend over a month in not just Italy but also Switzerland, France, and England. The first week of my college career we had a scavenger hunt for our freshman business connections class and one of the things I had to check off was to go to a fair advertising all the different ways to get involved on campus. One tent that was setup was the CIMBA study abroad program and my favorite professor was the one advertising it. She convinced me to do it the second she started talking about it. This program offers upper-level business classes as well as classes that can be transferred back to the University of Arkansas as basic elective credits or business electives. I took introduction to finance as well as introduction to marketing. These classes gave invaluable knowledge that sets a foundation for my future education. My professors were from the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska, they are highly respected in their individual fields with decades of experience. These classes are only four weeks long so the content is much more condensed but the content we were taught was like what the University of Arkansas would teach. Classes were four days a week with an hour and a half long each day allowing us to have plenty of face-to-face time with the professor. Two days out of the week we would have a three-hour long class session that would take us to a local business to see the differences between Italian business and American ways of doing business. This was extremely interesting because we got to walk in the factories and the offices of local businesses that serviced customers across the entire world. Having hands-on experience and learning about marketing and finance from people in the industry was extremely valuable in my academic journey. Both classes would give homework pretty frequently, but this was done due to the classes being much shorter than what the classes would be at the University of Arkansas.

I had two experiences that stood out the most from my time abroad. My first was going paragliding off Mount Grappa with some of my classmates. We got picked up by the paragliding company and were driven up the mountain on a one lane road with traffic going both ways at about fifty miles per hour. To say I was scared for my life was an understatement. The feeling of being on top of the mountain then just taking a few steps and you are flying in the air between mountains is indescribable. The instructors that flew with us were all Italian and the nicest people that made us feel completely safe (other than driving up the mountain of course). The second experience that stood out to me was spending one of our travel weekends living on a boat in Cinque Terra. We had eight of us from all over the United States crammed on a boat in a marina in paradise. We all became very close to each other and forged incredible friendships. Living on the boat allowed us to travel to the different islands and towns of Cinque Terra because the captain of the boat was our neighbor! The food of the different cities I traveled too was all similar yet unique in their own ways. If you went somewhere near the water, they focused on sea food and if you went somewhere inland you would be able to get the most amazing pizza and pasta.

Now that I have returned to the states, I have some advice to give to future CIMBA students. Get a fan for your room. There is no air conditioning in almost all of Europe, so going to sleep and trying to wake up without being in a pool of sweat was very difficult. A fan will become your best friend. Despite the no air conditioning I could not recommend CIMBA enough to any student whether they are finishing up their freshman year or going into their senior year! I wish I knew how lucky I was to be able to go to this incredible place and how much I would miss all the little differences and inconveniences you may experience while you are abroad because that is what makes it so unique and special about being over there. I should have brushed up on a little bit of Italian before I went over there but I was able to make it work just fine with only knowing ciao. The first thing I did when I got home was go straight to chick fil a! I would love to talk to anyone that is even somewhat interested in study abroad I Italy because it is impossible not to fall in love with the CIMBA program!