Alyssa Carroll '08Peer Advisor: Program Assistant / Outreach Coordinator
Reflections on My Study Abroad Experience:
Although to my surprise just a couple weeks into my European excursion I realized that I didn’t really want to see anything. After moving into a family’s home and falling in love with the city, I underwent a change of mentality which I later found only maximized my study abroad experience. Instead of seeing the country, I wanted to become part of it and to live in the country. This change in mentality allowed me to go from the role of tourist to someone who lived and thrived in the Italian culture. Because of this transformation I found myself working alongside Italians in a tourist publication, befriending the owner of my favorite gelato shop and absorbing the Italian lifestyle at home with my host family. Don’t get me wrong, I still traveled a great deal, but the time that I spent in Italy was not that of an outsider looking in but of an active participant. Coming back to the United States I realized that most of my expectations for study abroad had been met. The only area of my experience that didn’t align with how I had imagined the four months going, was living with a host family. The family that I was placed with has been hosting around six students a year for the last nine years. At times it felt as though my roommate and I were tenants more than members of the family. However, this didn’t dampen the experience in the slightest, if anything it provided my roommate and me with the perfect opportunity to build a strong rapport that turned into a friendship that will last a lifetime. |
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