Living the American Dream

Abbiamo chiesto a Matilde, una nostra studentessa che ambisce a diventare giornalista, di raccontarci la sua esperienza USA o come lo ha chiamato lei stessa, il suo American Dream.

Matilde ha preso parte alla nostra University Experience ed è partita con noi questa estate alla volta del South Carolina. Condividiamo il suo racconto con voi in due parti!

Living the american dream

Have you ever dreamed about going to America and living the life of an American college student once? Maybe not. But luckily someone has. I’m talking about a group of Italians who have wondered about the American life and wanted to pick up these dreams from the pillow and make it become reality. Thanks to the Dual Diploma program in fact, it was given the chance to live a university experience in the territory of South Carolina. Me and other 31 people took it, and we learned more about a different world, made new friends and understood more about what we wanted to do after high school. One goal of the program was exactly to provide moments of orientations for university as we were all about to start the last year of high school.

The journey started the 30th of June when we reunited all 32 at the Milano Malpensa airport. We were a little nervous and excited at the same. Someone didn’t know what to expect from the days after while others were worried about getting along with all this new people. To not talk about the fact that for some of us it was the first time in America or even the first time to take a plane! A little spoiler: it turned out to be an unforgettable experience that left us with special bonds and a great knowledge of the territory we visited.

We stayed for two weeks in the South Carolina Beaufort college

Although it is considered a small campus there, it was bigger than any Italian school I had seen before. There was everything you could ask for: rooms of four people with the living room and the kitchen, then the canteen, the library, the game room, and more others all very near form each other. Not to mention that the campus was surrounded by nature. You could take long walks outside or doing different activities taking advantage of a large space.

The only advice I can give you is to not go near the pools! You might run into not too friendly animals. Last but not least, there were many places outside the campus too like the beach or Walmart, the most popular destination of us students from where were used to take all kind of junk food to eat at night.

The day used to begin at 7 AM, so very early in the morning. Yes, that was a pity. But our minds changed very quickly as the pancakes were served for breakfast. It was considered one of the best foods by the majority. Of course, the American food was a fundamental part of the journey since it was all delicious thanks to our sweet chef Bob. He was always careful noticing what we liked or didn’t like and accepting suggestions.

Then what would come after the awakening could vary and that was the greatest part. Every day in South Carolina used to last a life due to the big number of experiences we lived. We did many lessons in which we learned more about ourselves, others, and the American school. The person who was teaching knew always how to involve the class in a new subject. We went visiting the cities and island near too. There everything was fascinating like the streets, the people, their traditions…

American Dream… 4th of July

We experienced the magic moments of the 4th of July where we could feel the strong bond which connected all the country and experiencing their way of living. About the colleges we visited instead we could learn the differences from an Italian university and an American one and realized there are many. We thought about whether studying abroad was a possibility to value or to cancel from our future and, if interested, do the application for free in one school.

During these trips we were given enough time to visit the place by our own, but we all agreed that the best times were the ones spent with our fantastic tutors: Lisa and Kay. Well, they never seemed like our tutors. Despite some few responsibilities and a little obsession with taking photos, they were just like other two girls who were experiencing everything for the first time with us. We really appreciated the effort they put to make everything work even when things didn’t go as planned.

For example, imagine that your flight didn’t land on time, and you miss the second flight which had to bring you to the college the first night. Imagine now that it happened for real, and we had to sleep on the chairs of the Atlanta airport. Crazy, right? Yes, it has been crazy, but everything ended in a good way. The staff gave us blankets and snacks and a free breakfast for the next morning. Our tutors also obtained a private flight to Savannah airport early the next morning. We arrived a little tired but at least we had the chance to live one night like Tom Hanks in “The Terminal” film.

Everyone whether were people showing us campuses or citizens was always kind and sociable and this led to having a comforting environment as a background of our journey. I can’t say the same for the climate that was hot and humid and sometimes surprised us with heavy rainfalls. In that case we used to run away soaking wet and laugh about it later.

Everything turned out to be fantastic after all. After those fourteen days we felt just like real American students who have known each other for a lifetime. We had experienced highs and lows together. The last days we used to walk between the school’s building as it was our home. We couldn’t believe how far we had come from the first day. But unfortunately, we had to realize that the journey had come to an end and the worst moment wasn’t even the time we packed but the time we all came back home…

Se sei curioso di conoscere la seconda parte dell’american Dream secondo Matilde Ciglieri segnati in agenda la data dell’11 Ottobre!

Ti regaliamo un piccolo spoiler: è qualcosa di fantastico ;)