I have 5 classes in total. I have only been to 3 of them so
far. I’ll explain why, shortly.
- Communicating in Italian: I love my Communicating in Italian class. At first, I wished that I was in Italian Language Beginning (those are the two options for beginner Italian classes) But I soon was grateful to be placed in Communicating in Italian. I feel like I know so much more Italian then everyone who is in Italian Language Beginning. Their class is more grammar based while my class is more, well… Communicating based. My class is focused more on speaking and I think that I am able to understand more in conversations during daily activities. The grammar class is more focused on spelling and sentence structure. When picking between the two options: it depends on what you want to learn. My professor is super nice and really understanding. She really pushes us. We stopped using English directions in class the second week. At first, I thought that was way too early but it has forced me to remember what a lot more words mean.
- Fashion Marketing: I’m learning a lot about marketing. At Central, I am both an Apparel Merchandising and Apparel Design concentration major but I tend to lean more towards the Apparel Design side. So this is different than what I am used to. We are currently working on a project for this company called Exclusive Fashion Tours. We are helping them construct a blog and writing blog posts for their clients. It is fun because I get to see places in Florence that I wouldn’t have normally gone to or even known about without this assignment. My first assignment was going to Scuola del Cuoio, which is a leather school that has been around for many years. The students and artisans work side by side to learn how to make a variety of different leather products. My professor is really nice. She owns an accessory company called Nannini Accessories. The class is actually supposed to be taking a tour, there in a couple of weeks.
- Fashion Photography: I’ve learned so much about a DSLR camera in such a short amount of time. I now understand what the terms aperture, shutter speed and ISO are and how to adjust them. We have had an impromptu photo shoot for a Chinese designer for department store advertisements. One of our assignments is called Street Style. We walk around Florence taking picture of people street style that we like. The key to the street style photography is to have a connection with the subject. It is challenging because when you walk up to a person to ask them, you’re not exactly sure what language they will be able to speak. Sometimes they do speak English, sometimes they only speak Italian and sometimes they do not speak either of the two.
My last two classes are Florence Food and Culture and
Magazine Editing and Publishing. I have not started these two classes but I can’t
wait to start them. They are intensive classes, which means they will begin on
November 17th and go for two and a half hours everyday Monday through
Friday for three weeks straight.
I was originally supposed to be taking Shoe Construction and Handbag Construction but because there was not enough students to run the class. Both were cancelled, unfortunately. So my two alternative classes are Magazine Editing and Publishing and Fashion Marketing.
I am a firm believer that everything happening for a reason so there is a reason why my schedule was changed. Even though, I was super sad that those were cancelled. I was going to be having class Monday - Friday every day for the whole semester. So in a way it was a blessing because I have been able to travel on the weekends and see some amazing places.
