After being very thrilled about taken part in a Study Abroad experience in Florence, Italy, unfortunately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the experience was moved to all online. With this being said, I took a Cross Cultural Psychology course through CAPA: The Global Education Network program, virtually at home. While my professor, and four total students were in fact in Florence, I and fifteen other students were at home. As this class was very interesting, I felt that I missed out on a lot of vital and even more interesting experiences compared to if I were of actually gotten the chance to travel to Florence.

In order to ensure that I and the other virtual students received somewhat of a cultural experience, my professor video tapped a lot of things in her life and on the field trips that the in-person students got to go on. For example, an assignment was to go to a local park in Florence, and “people watch” the children playing. Since I could not physically be there, my professor zoomed some of it, as if we were there. I appreciated the effort, as the COVID-19 pandemic was very hard on everyone.

This course dove into comparing the United States traditions, social life and interaction, culture, etc. to those of Florence, Italy. I knew immediately how interesting this would be to me, and I was in fact correct. When you are so used to how things are where you live, it’s hard to imagine other places are different. I learned how family life, food, working, etc. differed greatly. On a side note, living in Florence would be awesome… a focus on yourself and having fun, and eating good food, without putting your work always first, which differs so far from the life we live her in the United States. Some examples of the differences I learned, are stated below in my Final Exam for this course.

With all that being said, with all the different approaches and opportunities from this course, I was able to make the best out of it and excel as much as I could from this challenging situation from COVID-19. I felt that I learned a lot about learning in general, dude to this challenge, where I had to kind of force myself to adapt and thrive. I look forward to the day where I can visit Florence, Italy myself, and get to experience all the concepts I learned in real life.

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