CAPA WORLD

In this week's vlog, Amaia Rioseco visits her roommate from back home at her program in Paris, France. The two students chat over breakfast and compare their semesters abroad, discussing some common differences they've noticed between their life at Emerson College in Boston and their programs in Paris and Barcelona.

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What we remember

The ending of the First World War (1914- 1918) will be widely commemorated on November 11^th  2018. It was a global conflict that began and ended in Africa; thirty per cent of the British troops served on the Eastern Front. The conflict reshaped the international environment.  Old monarchies failed. The Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires collapsed. New countries in Europe and the Middle East emerged from the ruins including Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Trans-Jordan. The consequences of that war are still part of our global political landscape.

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In this week's post, Payton talks about visiting her friends over fall break in Madrid and Paris, and shares what their study abroad and daily experiences are like over there compared to hers in Florence, as well what she has learned about herself thus far.

Ciao! I just got back into the swing of things after an amazing fall break spent visiting Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid. I absolutely loved exploring, but, of course, started to miss Florence, and was ready to come home after a long week away. I stayed with friends that are also studying in Paris and Madrid, and it was really interesting to see how their experience differed from mine. Although there were a bunch of awesome things to appreciate about studying in those cities, it made me realize everything I love about CAPA and Florence, and why it’s such a perfect fit for me.

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Well, people try to put us down.
Talkin' bout my generation.
Just because we get around.
I'm not trying to cause a big sensation.
I'm just talkin' bout my generation.

—The Who (written by Marley, Carter, Jones etc.)

The idea that being born at a particular point in time creates some kind of collective identity is a relatively recent invention. The idea of a “generation” only came to be used to distinguish the younger from the older in the early 20th century. As an arbitrary means of interpreting historical change, it implies that those born within a given period are invested with distinctive behavioral traits. Sarah Laskow argued that “Societal generations are a relatively modern idea, hit upon by 19th century European intellectuals and refined in the beginning of the 20th century.” The idea of the generation offers a mechanism by which we impose some kind of pattern upon history: a model defined by age conflict.

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In this week's post, Connor compares his school life and classwork at CAPA Florence to that of his at University of Pittsburgh back home in the US.

Ciao! This past week was midterm week for me and my peers at CAPA, so it was a week full of studying and tests. There are a lot of pre-conceived notions about classes while studying abroad. In this blog I am going to discuss classes, teaching styles, assignments, and the tests a typical CAPA student might get while abroad.

A main difference about class structure I have had here compared to the University of Pittsburgh is the length and occurrence of my classes. At the University of Pittsburgh, and most universities in The States, classes meet 2-3 times a week for either 50 minutes a class or for 75 minutes a class. In Florence, my classes are once a week and they meet for 3 hours. There is usually a 15-minute coffee break in the middle of each class as well. This was certainly different than what I am used to back home. It can be difficult to stay focused class for 3 hours consecutively, but it is nice because each student generally only has one class a day. The rest of your day can be spent catching up on work or exploring the wonderful city of Florence.

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The Attraction of the Jazz Joints

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.
—Duke Ellington

Jazz is the language of the emotions.
—Charles Mingus

I spent a good deal of my mildly reprehensible youth listening to jazz in places where I was not supposed to be—predominantly in Soho in Central London. From about the age of 14, in the early 1960s, I began a lifelong love affair with jazz—not just the sounds but with the places in which it was played and the people who played it.

Soho has become gentrified in these days and few of the old, smoky subterranean jazz joints remain; none of them are smoky now of course and most have become boutiques or perfume shops—ironically sweet fragrances have replaced the heady mixture of sweat and tobacco. The most famous is Ronnie Scott’s jazz club but it has been deformed into a corporate “venue” for tourists and visiting business types (but at least it’s there, even if hideously expensively and much altered in ethos). These were refuges from respectability.

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Marianne Zarzar is an official CAPA blogger, sharing her story in weekly posts on CAPA World. A Sociology of Law, Criminology, and Deviance major at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, she is studying abroad in Sydney.

In this week's post, Marianne opens up about her identity and details her background, both local and international experiences as a student, and how she felt at home in Sydney.

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I am an international student from Mexico studying in the United States. I have lived in Minnesota for around five years now, having finished two years of high school as an exchange student. I have honestly loved Minnesota ever since I got here my junior year of high school. Since I am already an international student, a lot of people were confused as to why I wanted to go abroad, given that I was technically already abroad. The answer, I think, is that international students see the world a little differently. I think we see, literally, a world of opportunities and feel a want and need to explore as many of them as we can.

At school with my friends in Mexico.

Studying abroad has always been a dream of mine. Ever since I was in school in Mexico and had the privilege of having American and Canadian teachers, I have dreamed of going abroad. My teachers instilled in me the desire to learn more about different cultures, and that desire has led me to where I am today. After that first year abroad, I ended up at an international school, still in Minnesota, where I was able to meet people from countries I did not even know existed. I think that was why studying abroad during college was so important to me.

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Words by Emmie Madsen, a Journalism major at University of Missouri and CAPA London study abroad alum who is now a CAPA Ambassador.

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When planning ahead for your study abroad experience, students probably don’t expect their classes to be one of the highlights of their semester. But for my classmates and I, one of our classes was.

At CAPA London, we took a British Life and Culture class with a professor who helped give us a hands-on look at British culture. We took field trips across the city, visited historical sites, and learned from the perspective of someone who had been immersed in London his whole life.

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Words by Montana Ryzuk, a Psychology major at Siena College and CAPA London study abroad alum who is now a CAPA Ambassador.

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It might sound cliché but studying abroad in a global city gave me a new perspective on the world. I turned twenty years old the summer prior to studying abroad. With nothing but traveling on my mind, this birthday gave me the realization that I had gone two decades without making it overseas more than anything else. As a result, I had an endless amount of questions and curiosity only to be answered by traveling and experiencing a new country (or seven) first hand.

I chose to study abroad with CAPA in London, England, because of the internship program, which stood out as a once in a lifetime opportunity to me. Prior to departure, I tried to have the least amount of expectations as possible, as everyone advises you to do. Because of this, I never imagined how diverse of a city London would be. But better yet, I never imagined the global awareness and appreciation for other cultures I would gain from just four months in a foreign city.

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Sarah is an official CAPA vlogger for fall 2017, sharing her story in weekly posts on CAPA World. A Fashion Retail and Merchandising major at Lasell College, she is studying abroad in Shanghai this semester.

In this week's post, Sarah sheds more light into her academic experience as a study abroad student and how she likes her classes in Shanghai.

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Thanks Sarah!

Sarah's journey continues every Thursday so stay tuned.

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