Juliana Blakely
UMBC Faculty-Led: Comparative Politics and the Italian Political System
Major: Political Science
Study Abroad Post #1: Pre-departure
Ciao di Maryland (Hello from Maryland)! I officially have less than a week until I board the flight to Rome for the winter semester! Going into my first semester as a UMBC student, I hadn’t even considered doing a study abroad experience. To be honest, I’m a bit of a workaholic and couldn’t see myself taking off a month of work to traverse a different country, and I also worried about the cost.
During my first week on campus, I wanted to join groups on myUMBC and came across the UMBC Education Abroad group. To learn more about these experiences, I looked at the Study Abroad Ambassador blogs. When reading through all of the blogs, I fell in love with the idea of studying abroad and found the perfect program for me: Comparative Politics in Rome for two weeks. I also knew that if I was accepted to the program, I’d want to share my experience as a Study Abroad Ambassador, so I’m thrilled that I was able to receive this opportunity! Going to Rome is an amazing winter destination, especially right after Jubilee. Jubilee is an event that only happens every 25 years and can be described as a holy year for Catholics. It’s an important year for Catholics to seek forgiveness and deepen their faith. What this means for Rome is an even larger influx of visitors than normally expected. Jubilee began December 24th and ends January 6th, so we’ll have just missed this major celebration.
Back at home, I’m working on packing everything that I’ll need for my trip. I’m a little nervous, as I’ve never traveled by myself before (especially not internationally!), so I’m unsure about what to expect. There’s also been quite a bit of snowfall in Maryland for the past couple of days, so I’m hoping for no delays for our flights! Because I’m only taking one suitcase at this point and a comically large backpack, it’s been a bit like a game of Tetris to pack all the clothes necessary for 2 weeks.
Before we actually depart on our trip, we have about a week of online synchronous pre-departure classes, which I’ve greatly enjoyed! They’re about 6 hours, with 3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. Because of our lovely professor, time seems to fly by! Our professor is a member of the political science department, and she’s incredibly passionate about Italian politics, which makes the course more intriguing.
So far, we’ve been learning about different parts of the Italian political system and comparing it to what our equivalent looks like in the United States. We’ve been able to learn Italian phrases, so we won’t stick out as tourists while we’re abroad and even have cooking lessons at the end of our morning sessions.
In between packing and class, my family and I found some time to head to the National Harbor, where we were able to do a bit of shopping and take in the views. I also wanted to practice taking photos while I was abroad for the blog, as I was given a new phone for Christmas, and I wanted to get used to its camera. My parents and I had a lot of fun playing with the different camera settings, and I was able to come up with some photo ideas while I’m abroad.
What I’m looking forward to in Rome
Although I’ve been to Rome before, I went two years ago in the middle of an intense heat wave, so this experience will already be different than before. When I was accepted into this program, I already had some things that I wanted to do differently than the last time I was in Rome:
- Conversing more in Italian! The last time I was there, I didn’t speak a lick of Italian other than basic phrases like buon giorno (good morning), arrivederci (goodbye), and prego (thank you/please). I hope this time I’ll be able to converse more in Italian and even pick up some more Italian while I’m there.
- Make connections with people in my program. On my previous visit, I was accompanied by my family and other families on a study abroad experience, so I wasn’t able to make as many friendships as I had hoped. My hope is that like college, the fact that we’ll be living together in a different environment and spending so much time together will create friendships.
- This may be an obvious one but trying all the food! When going to Italy for the first time, I found my palate expanding and I tried more food than I anticipated I would before. While abroad, I hope to try all the delicious food spots in Rome and even in other cities. Previously, my favorite treat was gelato, which I had every day for a week. I’m hoping that my memory hasn’t served me wrong!
- Exploring the city! Although ironically, I’m not the biggest city person, I want to make sure that I’m seizing this great opportunity and seeing the sights to the best of my ability. I don’t have any specific places that I want to visit that aren’t already baked into our itinerary, but I’m hoping to find out more about potential sites while I’m there.
For most of the time I’ve been in school, I’ve studied French and before I did that, I was learning Spanish. Because of this, I felt pretty confident jumping into learning Italian. One thing I found out the hard way was how different Italian is from the romance languages I was accustomed to. Although there are some similarities, going from Spanish to French was much easier than going from French to Italian. Nevertheless, I’ve been working on it since I learned that I was accepted to my program and know a few phrases that should make it easier to get around and navigate around Rome.
What I’m looking forward to during the course
One of the unique aspects about this trip that I’m looking forward to experiencing is our official visits. We’ll be visiting different parts of the Italian political system, such as the Corte Suprema di Casszione (Italian Supreme Court), Palazzo Montecitorio (Parliament), and Palazzo Del Quirinale (President’s Palace). This week of official visits will definitely make for an interesting experience. Being a political science major, I look forward to seeing the similarities and differences between the Italian political system and the American political system.
A major advantage of my study abroad experience being through UMBC is I already had the opportunity to meet a few people going on the trip with me. Although I’m one of the only freshmen going on the trip, I already know a few other political science majors, which helps me feel at ease. I’ve also gotten to know my classmates due to our pre-departure classes.
It’s incredibly surreal that I’m going to Rome this soon! I can’t wait to give an update about how my first week abroad went. A presto (See you soon)!