Italy has been such an amazing time so far in my experience. I am in the 2025 Italy Business study abroad. We arrived on June 4th in Rome and stay in Italy until July 1st. While in Rome, we visited the Colosseum and Vatican City as a group. This was a great experience because I have never seen anything that historically significant. After a few days in Rome, we came to Florence, which has been amazing. Each person in the study abroad is assigned to their own Italian apartment in the city. It is a great way for us to feel what Italians live like and experience the whole culture. During the program, we have learned a lot about international consulting. This includes learning the way that Italians do business in comparison to what we are used to. Also, each group has been assigned a business in the Florence area to solve problems for which will help their operations. We got to meet each company, and many of them offered experiences for the students such as wine tasting, a leather workshop, a glimpse of a hotel restaurant that is unopened to the public, and a visit to a mushroom farm to see how they conduct operations and try some mushrooms. Throughout our time in Italy, my group will be assisting a local wine bar who needs help gaining prestige and a more effective social media presence. From what I have witnessed, businesses here are much more personable and less commercialized than those in the United States. We have also learned about international finance, such as exchange rates and arbitrage. It has helped me see the subject of finance in a whole new light that I have never thought of or have learned about before. I hope to gain a much better knowledge of how the rest of the world conducts business during my time here, and I have already learned so much. Because of all I have experienced so far, I am very excited to learn more about Italian business and experience it first hand for the second half of my study abroad.
