Roommate crew at our favorite gelato shop near our apartment 🙂
Since landing in Rome I have had so many unexpected experiences, both positive and negative. The first thing that was unexpected was how much of an adjustment it would be to a new school. One of the biggest differences between Rollins and American University is that American University sits on top of a large hill that is about a 25-30 minute walk from where we live. Going to class at Rollins you can leave your room 5-10 minutes before going to class anywhere on campus and make it in time (and I don’t see any hills). At AUR we wake up and leave a full hour before going to class to make sure we make it in time. At first, we thought we were going to walk every day because the public transportation here in Rome can be unreliable, but after two days of walking up 126 steps just to get to class, we started taking the bus. The other adjustment was the teaching style between Rollins and AUR teachers. At Rollins teachers are expected to be super engaging and base class in discussion. While AUR teachers are all very knowledgeable, they get caught up in making sure everyone has learned these hard facts instead of pushing discussion and critical thinking of an idea. It is not that one way of learning is completely better than the other, they are just different and something that I did not even think to expect to have to adjust to here. Finally, something else that came as a bit of a surprise (but less than the others) was the challenge of having to balance school and travel. Even though we are here for a whole semester it still doesn’t seem like I have enough time to go to all the places I want to. Since it is easier to travel with people it makes it complicated to schedule things with everyone’s different school schedules. Plus I am also always torn between wanting to experience everything place and thing I can, but at the same time making sure I am fully immersed in the culture of Rome. At the end of the day, it is all a win-win situation because I am learning, seeing, and experiencing new things in an amazing place with the best people!