Ciao Ragazzi!
This summer has absolutely flown by, and I can’t believe there’s only about a month we all head back to USC!
I’ve just had the most amazing 7 weeks studying abroad in Rome, Italy! As you might already know, I had the opportunity to do this as one of 42 USC students participating in the Viterbi Summer Overseas Program, and it was the experience of a lifetime. I’m currently sitting in my living room missing my abroad friends and gelato terribly, suffering from incredible jet lag, and looking through tons of pictures. This is a perfect opportunity to tell you a little bit more about my summer and recount some of my favorite parts of the trip!
Weekend Trip to Pompeii!
First, the study part of studying abroad. During the program, I took two classes over 7 weeks: Technical Writing and Thermodynamics. The technical writing class fulfills the upper division writing requirement for engineers and the thermo class counted as a technical elective. It was really great that both of these classes count towards my degree because besides having an amazing time in Italy, I was also able to get class credit, which leaves room for my minor in Social Entrepreneurship.
The classes took place from Monday- Thursday, 9 AM – 1 PM. While I’m not the biggest morning person in the world, it was nice having a set schedule every day and having my afternoons free. The school work was definitely significant since it was two full semester courses condensed into 7 weeks. Still, it was nothing too crazy, and since everyone was in the same boat, we all wanted to go out and explore Rome, so we made sure to crank out the homework so as to not get overtaken by FOMO. It helped that my writing class was super interesting since it took into account that we were in Italy, and incorporated aspects of Italian culture into our writing assignments. For one of my papers, I wrote a technical description on how to make Limoncello, a typical Italian drink, and I got to see firsthand how a local restaurant made their own homemade recipe. Of course, not having Friday classes was a huge plus, and gave us the chance to go on weekend trips to the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Florence,
and Orvieto. We also had free weekends to plan our own trips, and I was able to visit Cinque Terre and Nice, France, as well as explore more of all that Rome had to offer.
When I first got to Rome, I knew I wanted to do all the cool touristy things first, and I had to get pictures, otherwise, my mom would never let me hear the end of it…
But hones
tly, while seeing all these amazing sights, and going to school and living in Rome was an incredible experience, what really made this trip was the awesome people that I met and studied with. As I mentioned earlier, there were about 40 of us on this trip. We all go to USC and are from a variety of engineering majors. Even though I’d had some people in my classes in the past, or had seen them around campus, I never would have gotten to know such amazing people if it weren’t for this program. I really have met what I believe will be some of my best friends on this studying abroad trip, and that will remain my favorite aspect of this summer.
Hope y’all have an amazing rest of your summer!!
Til next time,
Jose
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