Author: Reagan Rosen | Major: Nursing | Semester: Summer 2024
After studying abroad and spending a month in Italy, I traveled for two more weeks following the program. Our first stop was Chamonix, France where I took a gondola to the top of Mont Blanc. Pictures do not do this justice.
I studied abroad at the CIMBA Italy Study Abroad program located in Paderno del Grappa, Italy. I first became interested in this program after hearing amazing things from peers and staff at the University of Arkansas. This was a month-long program in the summer, but I traveled throughout Europe for an extra two weeks following the end of the program.
When I began my study abroad experience, I was nervous that as a nursing student taking part in a business program I would feel out of place. After one week living on the CIMBA campus, all of those feelings had disappeared. The knowledge and experiences I gained from the month will apply to my future not only as a person, but also with my career in health care. Molly Rapert is a marketing professor at the University of Arkansas, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to take her Global Consumer course at CIMBA. She designed her course to focus on relevant information for everyone no matter your major or political views. We discussed China and Africa and how these two places are going to drastically impact the lives of young people. Before this course, I knew near to nothing about China. After four weeks, I gained a significant amount of knowledge that I will carry with me into the future. This is information I will never have the opportunity to learn about through a course while in Nursing School at the University of Arkansas. My entire perspective on the country has changed and my eyes have been opened.
Traveling in a foreign country requires you to be alert and organized while also being flexible knowing that anything could happen. There were many times where plans did not work out the way they were expected, and a quick change was needed. I tried to expect the best but prepare for the worst. I applied this when booking trains, air bnb’s, and trips where I could barely communicate with the person in charge because of the language barrier. This is something that directly applies to nursing because I will always need to be ready for the expected. I will carry these life lessons with me throughout my career as a nurse.
Another thing I loved about the CIMBA program was how the week was set up to encourage students to travel on the weekends. We had class from Monday to Thursday and then the entire weekend off. This allowed us to travel to a destination on Thursday afternoon then have two full days to explore anywhere you would like. I traveled to Florence, Cinque Terra, Pisa, and Rome. There are also strict rules for all of the teachers to not assign tests on Mondays so we could spend the weekend stress free and then come back to campus on Monday to focus on our studies before another weekend of travel. I felt like this was the perfect set up for a study abroad experience and I would not change any of it. I also loved how the campus is located in a small mountain town surrounded by locals and small family-owned businesses. This gave me an experience completely different than the study abroad programs located in the bigger cities of Italy. The town of Paderno truly started to feel like home by the end of the program. It was very hard to say goodbye but I left with so many new experiences, life lessons, friends, and memories.
One piece of advice I would give to anyone studying abroad during the summer is to travel after the program ends. A month is not enough to grasp how amazing Europe is and to be able to spend more time on your own or with friends will enhance your experience entirely. I was lucky enough to visit Switzerland, France, and Spain after the program ended which allowed me to see more of Europe and come home with even more memories and adventures.