Studying for Five Years in Italy
STUDYING in Italy for five years may be quite a long time but you need to do so if your family will be living here. If your father is an ambassador assigned to Rome or the point man in a multinational company here and has relocated all his family to this wonderful country, then you must be compelled to adjust and take up college here. If your interest is in the field of electronics and communications engineering, then you have nothing to worry about because the universities in Italy are very reputable and very credible. In terms of quality, nothing can beat them and they are excellent as far as European standards are concerned.
But one thing you must watch out for is that the medium of instruction here is Italian. Yet you can still afford to learn that because it takes only three academic semesters or 18 months to be fluent in Italian. Just take the Italian language program at the university that you are planning to enroll. Schooling in college is not a race after all so don’t immediately go to school once you’ve reached 18. Enroll first in an Italian language course. Anyway, you can be competitive after graduation.
In an Italian language course, you will be paired with a native Italian who wants to learn English as a second language. Because of a European Union mandate, all high school folks here in Italy learn a second language and a few of them take up English. But this is not the English that you have spoken as a first language since they’re only taking up British English in their studies. So in other words, your language exchange partner will help you cope with Italian and in return, you must also teach him or her English words, correct vocabulary and all that.
In an Italian language course too, you may be immersing with an Italian family. Italy is a relatively safe country anyway so you don’t need to be embedded at the ambassador’s residence in the embassy all the five years of your stay here. You need to explore Rome and other places, visit the Vatican, visit the European fashion capital of Milan, visit the vineyards in Tuscany, visit the only pedestrian city in the world and at the same time the only city in the world sitting on a lagoon which is Milan or visit the headquarters of Catholicism which in itself is a sovereign nation, the Vatican City. Explore the Colosseum and other exotic places in Rome and eavesdrop on the conversations of the locals. If you have understood these conversation flows fluently, then you have surely learned Italian.
But then again, if you are wary to proceed taking up college in Italian, you can always enroll at the American University in Rome. The American University in Rome is intended for American students who are living in Rome as well as locals who want to learn English more and take up bachelor degrees in English as the medium.
Whilst studying, if you find yourself enjoying foreign life, why not consider taking on your career abroad? By completing a TEFLcourse you will provide yourself with a paid ticket to travel the world, imparting your language skills to willing and interested learners worldwide in one of the many TEFL or TESOL jobs!
