First Skype exchange

Hi everybody!

It has been quiet on this blog lately, but now…Welcome back :-)
Yesterday afternoon I had my first Skype meeting with Sharon, a first-year student of Biochemistry at Dickinson College.
A new exciting experience has begun… :-) Thank God I was already familiar with “Skype” since I have been using it regularly for the last two years. So in this post there won’t be a tedious description of a mysterious technology I had to learn to cope with…;-)
Anyway, I must confess I was pretty nervous while I was waiting for Sharon to call me. In “Skype” I usually talk with people I know, so the idea of having a conversation with someone I had never met before sounded a little bit weird to me. Fortunately, I felt at ease from the very beginning.

Before talking about our different school systems (that was what we were supposed to do), we both introduced ourselves (in Italian). Sharon has been studying Italian for four years because she loves our language and country. She would like to visit Italy one day and meet her relatives who live in Molise. Dickinson students are going to have spring break next week and Sharon is spending these days in New Jersey with her family.
I asked her some general questions about American school system: she told me they start university when they are 18 and it usually takes them 3-4 years to graduate. In the US the high school lasts four years and there they study a lot of subjects (as we do). In each State the education system is more or less the same, but some differences can be noticed between public and private schools.

Then we switched into English and talked about the importance of studying abroad. She asked me if we have exchange programs and I told her about my Erasmus experience. We reflected on the fact that spending some time in a foreign country enables us to become more broad-minded. We both seemed to appreciate multicultural environments where you meet different cultures and ways of living.
We also discussed about university life; I explained that in Italy we do not have a campus with dorms but we usually live with our families or share apartments with other students. That is quite different from the USA, where most students leave their home towns to go to university. We came up with the conclusion that both living in the campus and with your family has its pros and cons.
Sharon had me notice that when you all live very close to each other it is much easier to form deep friendships. Your peers become your family while you are away from home, so it is often at university that you meet your “best friends”. I realized that myself when I lived in a student hall during my Erasmus. I feel here it is the other way round (at least for me); we attend the same lectures, we go for a coffee or have lunch together but in the evening (or at the weekend) most of us come back to their own home and life. I think this way you meet a lot of nice people but it is quite tough to become close friends.
On the other hand, it is not always easy for American students to live so far away from their families for such a long time.

My impression of this first Skype exchange is absolutely positive and I really hope it will go on like this. I am convinced this is a great opportunity we just cannot miss!

Bye!