A series of quotes from recent SAI Alumni sharing their transformative study abroad experience.

Favorite Part of Your Study Abroad Experience

Brett Eppinger – USC – FUA

I think my favorite part of my experience was being able to learn the city of Florence a little bit more. Just being able to, go beyond just the basic tourist attractions and kind of get lost in the city streets kind of experience. 

Ryleigh Horn – FAU – FUA

I think being able to travel all throughout Italy and having access to travel beyond that, and especially with meeting different people, whether it was students or just natives to Florence, it really helped me expand my horizons socially and just culturally.

Christian Capello. – College of William and Mary – JCU

I think it would have to be meeting all these new people. There were a lot of people that I didn’t know and it was super cool to just get to meet these new faces and hear where everybody’s from and it just gave me a much bigger network of people to be with and it was really a great time experiencing all that but also traveling places and getting a different education. The whole education system was a little different than my home university. So, it was nice to get a different experience there.

Onsite SAI staff

Alyssa Famiano – Colorado State University – FUA

My experience with receiving support from the onsite SAI staff was they’re very responsive again, and I could tell that they cared about their students a lot. We could just go into their office and there’s always people on staff being able to help us. And I just felt super comfortable being able to talk to them.

Katie Carillo. – Clemson – FUA

My experience, receiving support from the on site SAI staff was also really positive. I actually got a cold while I was abroad once, and I was really nervous about finding a doctor and what medicine looked like and everything. But they gave me step by step instructions on where to go. They even told me what statues to look for that were nearby.And the doctor’s office. They spoke English and it was actually connected to the pharmacy. So it was all really easy.

Somkar Dey – College of William and Mary – Barcelona

There were times where I wanted to do volunteering work external to what was already provided to me, and they helped me get the opportunities I wanted to actually participate in volunteering, not just in teaching, but also in disaster relief. For example, after the disaster that happened at Lancia while I was there. That was incredibly meaningful to me.

Travel Tips

Alyssa Famiano – Colorado State University – FUA

My advice to students traveling abroad for the first time would be kind of embrace change, and the not knowing of what exactly comes next. I’m definitely an avid planner. I love to know what I’m doing, especially if I’m traveling, getting on a plane, or getting on a train, whatever it is.

Bella Cifaldi – University of South Carolina –  Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

 My advice to a student traveling abroad for the first time would definitely be to pack light. Especially, when you’re doing weekend trips, you should ideally only pack a backpack so you don’t get charged for that. And that definitely taught me how to pack properly and efficiently.

Written by: Ralph, SAI Programs Academic Relations Manager