Hi guys,
Unfortunately our exchange is over!!! I really appreciated the way in which our lessons were organized this last semester and I feel saying that to enter its culture, too, Is the best way to learn a language. I have already commented in class my experience with Skype so that here I summarise in brief what has the exchange given to me in terms of feeling, knowledge and language improvements.
As far as feelings are concerned, I was very curious at the beginning of the exchange and I was looking forward to speaking with the American peer. Our first conversation was about immigration in Italy and in America. Since our peer was not actually American but Spanish she provided us with information regarding immigration but from a European point of view. This led to a quite strange situation because we almost started to consider three different cultures in our conversation: she would compare the immigration in America with that of Spain in order to explain us more clearly the main differences among the two countries(Europe and USA).
There were no particular moments in which I felt uncomfortable. I appreciated the way in which we started our exchange giving a brief presentation of each other. The presentation gave me the opportunity to make me explain my origins and the reasons for being in Padua. This was a particular moment when I felt comfortable because I was able to notice some similarities in the way Rocio looked to the American world and in the way I, myself, looked to the Italian world; both as foreigners in those two countries.
Unfortunately the time to be spent on our exchange was rather brief so that I have not learnt so many things about my peer's culture and about the US, in general. Apart from the first time we met us in Skype, the rest of the exchange was all based on Dickinson college life. I have learnt a lot of things regarding American life at school and it was then that I had the chance to discover how big are the differences between the Italian university system and the American one.
I did not experience any sort of incidents or particular problems over the exchange because my Italian peers and I were sharing almost similar ideas with our Spanish interlocutor.
Once, when we were talking about the way students were assigned a room and a roomate within the campus I was not able to understand how that was happening at Dickinson and how could the college decide by itself for a student's roomate. Since, in Italy and in Spain nothing similar happens Rocio, too, had some troubles in explaining us how it was all carried out.
As regards the American culture, I was interested in knowing how the many ethnic communities such as the Mexicans or the Asians, live in the US. When facing another culture, I think it's important to consider how this culture accepts and hosts the variety of social groups within it. This is true especially when we face a large culture such as the American one, which is known to be very mixed. Looking at a big nation, which is supposed to host very different cultures, may be useful in order to open our minds and start considering the importance of intercultural exchanges in our life.
When discussing about immigration with my American peer, I asked her how were the different cultural groups seen in the US and how did American young people feel about such a mixed environment characterizing their country. She replied that those big differences were not seen, at all, by the majority of American young people because, they, too, come from different states or at least don’t have American origins . It was after her reply that I was definitely able to change my point of view towards American culture.
As far as our exchange is concerned, I did not encounter particular reactions to what I was saying or regarding the way I was expressing myself.
It was quite easy to engage in conversation with our peer because we established a friendly environment and this helped me to feel at ease.
