<p>I'm just a freshman but I've known since forever I want to study abroad in Italy. I studied Italian for 5 years and did AP, and am planning to take 2 classes in college so my language skills are decent, not great, i'm sure they'll improve a lot in Italy.</p>
<p>I go to NYU and we have a campus in Florence - beautiful ancient villas, surrounded by gardens and olive groves, near the center of the city. Sounds great, but I've always wanted to study in an Italian university with Italian students - this is just NYU in another city, filled with mostly NYU students, and a handful of Italians/internationals.</p>
<p>It'll be nice to have other NYU students/Americans to talk to and learn Italian with, plus because classes, housing, meals, and everything is arranged through my college, it will make the whole process easier. Do you think it would be better to go there, or to arrange the whole thing through an italian college and forget NYU? Plus I didn't really enjoy Florence when I was there, I preferred Milan, Rome, and Venice.</p>
<p>Venice is my favorite Italian city, but it's so touristy, plus it will be a huge adjustment living there - they have no cars, the city is a series of islands connected by bridges, it's less convenient, there's only 1 university I can go to there and it's pretty tiny, 1 main building on the grand canal. Has anyone studied in Venice before? It's a nice place for vacation, I'm not sure if it's great for study abroad. It sounds silly, but I keep thinking I don't remember seeing any grocery stores there, seems like every other building is a tourist spot. The one great thing though is that it's SO much cheaper than paying NYU tuition. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>I would say definatly go through your school because credits usually transfer and you end up saving a lot of time and money too. But the most important thing is to make sure your credits transfer. If you have anymore questions PM me!</p>
<p>I would try to find a different exchange since you don’t pay NYU tuition if you do your own, right?
Because at my school if you set up your own exchange you pay the exchange school’s tuition, which is good because Italian universities are really cheap. I’m thinking about U of roma, 2 falls from now.</p>
<p>Not to mention you are going to be forced to use Italian a lot more if you don’t study with NYU.</p>
<p>Regarding location, idk if venice is the greatest place to go for studying italian since venitian isn’t technically an italian dialect, and i heard that generally learning italian before going to venice doesnt really do all that much for you.</p>
<p>Thanks guys - actually picking an Italian college in Venice would be SO much cheaper - NYU tuition is $37,000 a year plus room/board, but the Italian college costs like $1500 a year + room/board. but yeah, i’d be worried about the credits transferring over. </p>
<p>As for Venetian - Almost 80% of italians speak standard italian, but all over Italy they have their own dialects. I went to Italy 2 summers ago and spoke Italian to them, and they understood me everywhere I went (Rome Venice Milan Florence). But yeah, while I would learn Standard Italian at an Italian college, i would probably pick up on the Venetian dialect as well.</p>
<p>Try going through another college if you’re set on going to that location. I.E. I used SUNY Brockport’s study abroad programs even though I don’t attend that school and just transferred the credits (which was just forwarding my adviser a copy of the course descriptions and that was it.)
I know SUNYabroad.com has hoards of locations. I haven’t tried any other schools though but I think it would be easier either sticking with NYU or using an American school to study abroad than going straight to the Italian college.</p>
<p>ETA: Sorry, it’s <a href=“http://www.sunysystemabroad.com/[/url]”>http://www.sunysystemabroad.com/</a> that has SUNY’s programs, not SUNYabroad.com
I prefer going to that site simply because they literally have 100s of abroad programs versus going to every other college individually and hoping they have that country.</p>
<p>thanks Platts - so would I pay SUNY tuition or Italian tuition? Although I’m instate so it doesn’t make a huge difference.</p>
<p>I’d prefer Venice, but there’s not many colleges there for obvious reasons…going through an American school would make it way less of a hassle, but the italian college shouldn’t be a huge problem either.</p>
<p>yeah definitely they will all speak italian, i’m just saying that basically walking in florence you are going to have an easier time understanding them if speaking in dialect (similar to much of the north) and probably rome 2 (though roman dialect is a bit different). Just walking through the streets in venice, sicily, or sardegnia there’s definitely a good chance they will be speaking in dialect and you won’t have a clue what they are saying. Of course going to a university there would be different since they’de be required to teach in Italian.</p>
<p>Italian education is so cheap it’s amazing.</p>
<p>You’d pay SUNY’s tuition.</p>
<p>Yeah it’s great how cheap it is there (although I kind of know why, as the universities there offer fewer resources, classes are more limited to your major, and the whole structure is overall different) but I’d be saving a lot of money going through an Italian college. SUNY is way better than NYU tuition, but not as great as Italian. </p>
<p>I see what you mean about the dialects…i’m not familiar with the various dialects at all, except a bit of Sicilian. Florence is appealing in that it’s so convenient, NYU has it’s own campus/professors/students there, but I think I’ll pick Venice. And Ca’ Foscari, the university there, does offer classes in English. I’d be taking a foreign language Italian class there and plus I’d pick up Italian and lots of Venetian dialect from the locals/students. </p>
<p>I love Venice, but it’s hardly ideal for study abroad. it’s so different there…seems like every other building is a tourist spot and the whole structure of the city makes it more adventurous, I think. Plus I hate being land-locked, being from an island myself and seeing the bay every day of my life.</p>
<p>yeah, the unis there are ridiculous bureaucracies. In my Italian class we read this essay on how messed up they are (in italian of course). </p>
<p>Funny thing about dialects, Italy only recognizes sardinian and i think a couple other languages as actual separate languages (not dialects of italian), and these don’t include venetian or sicilian, though they are virtually untelligible to italian speakers when it comes to vocabulary, but in having various grammatical elements non existent in standard italian.<br>
Like
“A go faxesto”- is venetian for “i have done”
Some of the written stuff makes a little more sense though, but still…</p>
<p>Weird stuff though is that aside from venetian, there’s also venetian italian. ex.“Marco el xe drio rivar” is venetian, “marco sta rivando” is venetian italian, and the standard sta “marco sta arrivando”.</p>