American Blood, Italian Heart
We don’t think twice about sitting down in lecture and complaining to the person next to us about how packed Broida Hall is today. In Italy I got to class 20 minutes early so I wouldn’t have to sit on the ground again. Class always started 15 minutes late and ended 15 minutes early. I can't imagine such a thing in the States. Class here starts at 2 and ends at 3:15 and there’s no discussion about it.
In Italy we had a 5 minute smoking break nearly every class. Sometimes students wouldn’t even come back into the room, they’d stand outside the window smoking and listening to lecture when they weren’t chatting with friends until class was over.
In Italian universities you can take an exam several times and argue with the professor for a higher grade. No one tells you what will be on the exam, it is a random series of oral questions thought up by the professor asked in front of all of the other students. You might wait hours for the students before you to take their exams, it hits four o’clock and you’ll have to come back tomorrow, it’s worse than the DMV. There is no schedule. The professor’s mood and bias affects your grade. They tell you what you got immediately, ruthlessly, in front of everyone. My Italian roommates and friends couldn't fathom it any other way, that in the States you sit in a room with 200 other students and are judged on what bubbles you fill in on a scantron. They couldn’t imagine that you have no say in your grades or that it’s a numbers game. Or let alone that you still have weekly homework and sections in university!
As Geller states in Terminology and Intersections, “little c culture refers to groups of people with a salient set of shared cultural traits, such as a technology, aesthetic, language, belief system, group identification” and that these groups are, “derived from a common place and time”(14). As humans we are repulsed by change and accustomed to tradition, to the time and place we are best adapted to. We are after all creatures of habit. Language, technology and education systems are all elements of culture and any change to those is shocking, regardless of whether it’s “better” or not.
I lived in Italy for four and a half years, I loved it with all my heart but going to an Italian University made me appreciate the American education system more than anything. An international experience at your local coffee shop talking to a student from Japan or going to a foreign country yourself often reflects more about our own culture, values and thoughts than it does the country in comparison. I could tell you all about Italy, the culture, the language, the lifestyle, but I will never be Italian and my analysis on the region is based on my experience as an American. Going abroad surely taught me to love and appreciate other places and people. It gave me time to think, but more than that it taught me what I like, dislike and appreciate about my own country.
As Woolf remarks, international or global learning “facilitates a better understanding of oneself and one's own group through the prism of the other and helps one become a better citizen of one's own country” (30). Cultural differences and diversities surround us, it is up to us to explore them near and far to discover other viewpoints, traditions, people and in that our likes, dislikes and gratitudes that makeup who we are ourselves.
Works Cited
Mikk, B.K. & Steglitz, I.E. (2017). Learning across cultures: locally and globally (3rd ed.) Washington, DC: Stylus Pubs/NAFSA.
In Italy we had a 5 minute smoking break nearly every class. Sometimes students wouldn’t even come back into the room, they’d stand outside the window smoking and listening to lecture when they weren’t chatting with friends until class was over.
In Italian universities you can take an exam several times and argue with the professor for a higher grade. No one tells you what will be on the exam, it is a random series of oral questions thought up by the professor asked in front of all of the other students. You might wait hours for the students before you to take their exams, it hits four o’clock and you’ll have to come back tomorrow, it’s worse than the DMV. There is no schedule. The professor’s mood and bias affects your grade. They tell you what you got immediately, ruthlessly, in front of everyone. My Italian roommates and friends couldn't fathom it any other way, that in the States you sit in a room with 200 other students and are judged on what bubbles you fill in on a scantron. They couldn’t imagine that you have no say in your grades or that it’s a numbers game. Or let alone that you still have weekly homework and sections in university!
As Geller states in Terminology and Intersections, “little c culture refers to groups of people with a salient set of shared cultural traits, such as a technology, aesthetic, language, belief system, group identification” and that these groups are, “derived from a common place and time”(14). As humans we are repulsed by change and accustomed to tradition, to the time and place we are best adapted to. We are after all creatures of habit. Language, technology and education systems are all elements of culture and any change to those is shocking, regardless of whether it’s “better” or not.
I lived in Italy for four and a half years, I loved it with all my heart but going to an Italian University made me appreciate the American education system more than anything. An international experience at your local coffee shop talking to a student from Japan or going to a foreign country yourself often reflects more about our own culture, values and thoughts than it does the country in comparison. I could tell you all about Italy, the culture, the language, the lifestyle, but I will never be Italian and my analysis on the region is based on my experience as an American. Going abroad surely taught me to love and appreciate other places and people. It gave me time to think, but more than that it taught me what I like, dislike and appreciate about my own country.
As Woolf remarks, international or global learning “facilitates a better understanding of oneself and one's own group through the prism of the other and helps one become a better citizen of one's own country” (30). Cultural differences and diversities surround us, it is up to us to explore them near and far to discover other viewpoints, traditions, people and in that our likes, dislikes and gratitudes that makeup who we are ourselves.
Works Cited
Mikk, B.K. & Steglitz, I.E. (2017). Learning across cultures: locally and globally (3rd ed.) Washington, DC: Stylus Pubs/NAFSA.
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