Summer school is out for Summer!

Ciao da Venezia,

I write to you as I sit in my hotel room in the extraordinary city of Venice, Italy. As I sit here I am completely and utterly shocked as to how fast my education at IULM has gone. It has been 3 weeks since I stepped onto the IULM campus excited and nervous to take on these courses and now I am sad that it has come and gone so quickly. I learned so much within just 3 weeks. In case some of you are unaware I took 3 courses from IULM University in Milano, Italy. The three courses were intro to Italian, economics, and fashion and design.

Pictured above: Ilaria (IULM tutor - left) & Lindsey (right).

My first week of school we took intro to Italian and I absolutely loved it! Our teachers Filippo and Massimo were amazing teachers and people. They taught us basically everything we needed to in order to survive in Italy. For example they taught me “Come ti chiami?” which means what is your name? A basic response to this would be to say my name is Lindsey, translated “Mi chiamo Lindsey”. Another phrase I often used was “pesso avere…” meaning can I have… This phrase is often used when ordering at a restaurant. I learned a lot more Italian than I ever thought possible in one week. When practicing my Italian with locals I usually got told “bene” meaning good, but other times they would laugh because it can be difficult pronouncing their words correctly. Not only did I love learning and listening to the Italian language we really got to know and interact with our professors. They were so friendly and were very surprised at how interested our class was in their language and culture. Now that I have spent almost 5 weeks in this beautiful country the Italian language has become a part of my daily routine. I hardly notice when others speak Italian to me, but I will say that whenever I hear English speakers my attention directly turns to them. I’m nervous that once I stand on U.S. soil that I will forget and lose the Italian that I did learn but maybe that will give me motivation to continually practice and learn it through online apps or programs. You could definitely say Italian was my favorite course out of all three.

Lindsey posing with some Armani manikins.

After Italian we took economics with our professor Guido who was quite a funny guy! Guido took us on many little field trips throughout our course including the most popular fashion district in Milano that is home to the world’s most popular designers. During this little field trip I took enjoyment in examining the window displays and posing with some of the manikins. This fieldtrip was very helpful in becoming familiar with this area because in our fashion and design course we would need to visit one of these high-end retail stores. The last week of our studies at IULM we took fashion and design. This course was very interesting and relatable since I work with the buyers at Buckle Corporate Office. During this course we were assigned a popular designer to research and present on and mine was Valentino. Valentino is a worldwide brand with over 90 stores across the country. In our course we had to examine and study the stores of which we were assigned. My group had to go visit the Valentino flagship store, which was located in the same area that Guido took us during our field trip. When entering the store I immediately felt out of place. This is a store where the lowest price merchandise is worth thousands of dollars and I walked in with my Roo, flip-flops and a sundress. Luckily the staff at Valentino was very welcoming and loved sharing the history behind the man who built the Valentino empire. Hopefully my new found appreciation for haute couture will lend itself some help when returning back to the Buckle and my job.

Field trip with the entire class.

I just want to thank my classmates, our tutor Ilaria, and the staff at IULM for such a great experience. I didn’t expect for the locals to be so welcoming and friendly and without them my experience wouldn’t have been nearly as great as it was. With only two days left in this magical country I am going to take in and savor every moment because who knows if I will every get a chance to come back again. Until next week my friends, God bless!

Buona notte,

Lindsey Jo