by
Laura Barnum
With the seats in the room
almost filled, the Student
FORum: Under TwentyFOUR: Erasmus Generation vs. Junior Year Abroad,
sponsored by Fairfield University,
the City of Florence Project Link, the University of Florence, the
Centre Jean Monnet, and the Toscana-USA Association, was another
success. Held on April 2, the event took place at Palazzo Giovane,
and was only the second yearly event held by the Living and Learning
Community program at Fairfield University. Proving to be an extremely
thought-provoking, the audience come from different backgrounds and
the aim of the event was to discuss the logistics of both Erasmus-the
25-year-old European program that allows university students to study
abroad-and
the American study abroad system.
Leonardo Pierini, Lorenzo
Sarti, Marta Meniconi, and Claudia Liberatore are students at
University of Florence who live with American students in the Living
and Learning program at Fairfield University. They led a discussion
on the study abroad experience through Erasmus, from their
perspective as Europeans. Marta and Claudia, who have previously
studied abroad in Dublin and Sweden, talked about the challenges and
successes they faced when going to and returning from abroad. Amelia
Curotto, the Program Assistant at Fairfield University, is a former
U.S. student who studied abroad in Florence her junior year and has
seen both sides of being an American foreigner when studying abroad
and living as a local in Florence.
After the students’
presentation, time was left for the audience’s participation in the
discussion. From debating about the cultural differences as a
European student studying abroad within Europe versus an American
studying abroad in another continent to discussing the guidelines and
expectations coming from a European or American student, the forum
left students, professors, and others with many coinciding as well as
diverse opinions of the benefits each program offers.