Study Abroad in Barcelona, Spain - Spring 2020
Studying abroad in Barcelona with CEA gave me the opportunity to take classes from an European perspective at the CEA Center and at the local university Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, improve my Spanish fluency, make new connections and get to know the Spanish and Catalan culture.
Studying abroad is a lifetime experience. It is a sort of restarting again. Going out of the comfort zone means facing a change, and get ready to discover a whole new world. I chose to study in Barcelona because it is a melting pot full of people from everywhere in the world, and also it has been a long time since I wanted to explore Spain as I have always been attracted by the Spanish culture. As soon as I got to Barcelona, I quickly fell in love with the city, probably one my favorite cities I have ever been in my life. I learned a lot about both the Spanish and the Catalan culture. I took advantage of all the local opportunities that CEA provided, but I also step out of my comfort zone by meeting locals, joining the Adidas Running Group and attending the Adidas run for the students. I also visited Madrid and I was planning to visit other cities such as Seville and Bilbao. Also, I wanted to join the Barcelona fencing club and volunteering at the Barcelona Tennis Open. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus epidemic I did not get to those experiences. I am very satisfied with the improvement in Spanish by practicing it with friends and faculty. I believe that learning the language where you study abroad is the best way to connect with the local culture. Living in Barcelona, another country, and learning my third language, Spanish, enriched me and expanded my knowledge. I feel much more closed to the Spanish culture, but also with the Latin American one since I made a lot of friends from South America in Barcelona. Meeting a few locals helped to learn about the Catalan culture and the debate with Spain. I connected with a lot of people from students and faculty to professors.
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Check out my reflection on the CEA website to learn more about my experience in Spain!
Study Abroad in Adelaide, Australia - 2016
An unforgettable, extraordinary, fantastic experience...I don't know other words I can use to describe my experience in Australia. It was something incredible, one of those life-changing experiences. Anyway, it's at the last minute that I decided to leave; my parents during my second year of high school talked to me about going to study abroad for a semester, but despite my passion for traveling I was enjoying high school. It was still new and different from middle school, I didn't want to leave it. It was at the end of that second year that I started thinking about doing that kind of experience, I wanted to do something new, something different and after the trip with my family in the summer holidays in America, I decided to go abroad for a few months. Many suggested Australia and after reflecting about it, in October everything was already planned. I was so excited, thinking about the experience. I didn't know in what part of Australia I would ended up, but I was motivated and happy with my decision. That helped me improving at school and I have never thought about the fact that I was going to leave my hometown, family and friends for five months. I had high expectations and I was so ready to leave.
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Once I got to Adelaide, the sensations I felt were crazy, everything new, everything different. I started to discover Australia and get to know my family, their friends and relatives. School was very different: uniform, different schedule, various activities of any kind, and bigger infrastructures.
After a month, I started to understand more and speak English better, I was developing great relationships with family and friends. It was also cool and fun to learn at school differently. I was feeling very happy, I had found myself again, I hadn't felt so good for a long time. I learned to see reality in a different way, to meet new people and I did things that I would never have done in Italy; I approached everything in a different way. I understood that everything depended on myself, on my approach, on how I behaved and how I faced things because it's true that you could be more or less lucky according to family and city, but you are the one who decides how to make the most of the experience.
I have learned so much in Australia, I have changed, and I have created important cornerstones for my future. I would have never decided to go to college in the United States without my study abroad experience in Australia. When I came back to Italy from Adelaide I used to say that my exchange was just the beginning...I was right!
