Anyone studied abroad in Italy?

Question

Has anyone studied abroad in Italy? I visited Italy over the summer and fell in love with it, i'm looking to study abroad... wondering if anyone has before and has comments towards doing so?

Answer 1

My information is if you are a high school student.

In order to become an exchange student, you must first find a program. It should be CSIET listed (www.csiet.org) so there is some oversight. You should also ask your high school counselor for a recommendation as an organization is only as good as the local representatives. In general, AFS, Aspect, Rotary and YFU are all reputable programs. As the other poster noted, Rotary is the cheapest, but it's also the most competitive.

Becoming an exchange student will be a huge challenge for you but the benefits are amazing. In addition to the obvious language and culture immersion, you will mature, learn how to make friends and become more aware of the world around you.

For lots of information from application to return home, check out http://www.exchangestudentworld.com/

It's written by exchange students and has lots of good ideas!

Answer 2

How old are you? There are University opportunities as well as high-school opportunities.

For high-school level exchange, I suggest these programs:

> Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) - This is the one I'm going on. They're relatively low costing and they're very well respected. I'm going on an exchange with them later this year for a long-term period and it will only cost $3,900. This includes the plane ticket cost as well as a small monthly allowance of $50-$100. However, you aren't necessarily guaranteed placement to one particular country. In my district, we 5 preferred countries and they do their best to get us placement in one of them. The 5 countries thing helps show that we're the flexible kind of student their looking for.

http://www.rotary.org/en/StudentsAndYout...

> American Field Service (AFS) - Costs more. Well-respected. Students usually have to do some fund raising to go

http://www.afs.org/afs_or/home

Those are generally the top ones.

But whatever you do, don't go through Two Worlds United!