An American in Florence
Hello, loyal followers of the Bold Beautiful Barnard Blog. It’s me, Cassandra, back at it with more study abroad content.
Ever since high school, I wanted to study abroad. Even though I made few international trips before college which didn’t involve visiting family, I knew I liked the experience of travel and learning about new places, people, and cultures. Studying abroad was a priority for me and I wanted to make sure that at whatever college I attended, there was the option of studying abroad at some point.
While I was looking at colleges, it became obvious to me that any school further than two or three hours away was less than ideal for my parents. I’ve always been very close to them, especially as an only child. They were ecstatic when I told them I decided on Barnard, since it’s just a one and a half hour drive from our house on Staten Island. You can imagine my surprise when I spoke to my dad after one of these college visits about studying abroad and he told me I should do it two times if I could. I was even more shocked when my mom agreed.
Even though I knew I had my parents’ full support when it came to academic travel, I didn’t really seriously consider it until I was already in college, maybe halfway through my first year. I started learning more about the study abroad process at that point--like how Barnard financial aid carries over during your semester abroad--and began to think that it might be a real possibility for me.
I still had a lot of questions. Where did I want to study abroad? Would it even be possible with my requirements and the possible language requirement for study abroad? Would I be able to manage spending so much time away from my friends and family?
I might not still have the answer to my last question (I write this before I prepare to go to bed on my second night in Florence), but some of the pieces began to fall into place the more I considered going abroad.
Quickly after deciding I wanted to study history, I found where I might like to go--Florence, Italy.
A fun (read: embarrassing) fact about myself is that I honestly thought my family was Italian when I was a kid because Staten Island, my home borough of New York City, has the highest proportion of Italian-Americans of any county in New York City and my grandma cooked such delicious Italian food. Pizza, pasta, gelato, coffee--all kinds of food I wanted to eat. Aside from Italy’s reputation for its amazing cuisine, Firenze is the birthplace of the Renaissance. Although my concentration in my history major is not, in fact, the Renaissance, I still wanted to be exposed to all of that history wherever I ended up.
From there, finding the program I wanted to do was easy. I thought NYU would be perfect for me: not only is their Florence campus absolutely stunning, but being surrounded by other students from New York seemed like the perfect way to take a little bit of home with me while abroad. Even better, since most of the students at NYU Florence call Greenwich Village their home university, I thought that the people I met abroad could easily become friends I see every now and then back in New York.
Academically, NYU Florence also seemed like a great fit, with so many classes I was interested in taking, with everything from political science/history courses to immigration studies courses and even a creative writing class in Italian. Plus, as a program on Barnard’s pre-approved study abroad list, I felt that going to NYU Florence would allow for a more seamless integration with my academic program at Barnard.
Over the course of this semester, I’ll be writing about my experience in Florence--academic, social, cultural, and anything else which arises. I’ll also attempt to answer some questions you may have along the way. Be sure to check out Barnard Admissions social media for more content on study abroad, and until then, a presto!