About the exchange...

I've always been interested in different cultures, so I've found this exchange very exciting. I chose to be part of the exchange with Dickinson college USA for two reasons: first of all because the guys were mothertongue speakers and secondly because we were supposed to use Skype. This programm was not new to me and I use it quite often at home. That’s why the idea of talking "live" with someone from the other side of the world has aroused my interest a lot. Moreover, I was really curious about how those American people studied Italian, what was their level, how was their pronunciation and so on. We had many interesting topics to talk about, which made differences and similarities between our cultures very clear.
I felt quite comfortable during this exchange.Luckily I never had incidents or misunderstandings due to cultural differences. I think that intelligent people are more willing to overcome them than to limit to them. Moreover, I could make friends with Kristen, my American peer, and other people of my course I did not know before. I really appreciated when my American peer called me during the weekend just to hear from me and have a little talk together. That made our relationship more interpersonal and less mechanic. Another thing that I liked a lot was our meeting with Chiara, one of the Dickinson students who was in Padova on holiday: we had the chance to know directly someone we could only meet virtually (and she gave interesting useful answers to our questions).
During the exchange I asked many questions about life, culture and many other topics (not only the assigned ones). I love analizing differences and similarities between my culture and others. I had the chance to speak a lot (which never happened during five years of university) and learn many different things from the conversations with a native speaker.
Since I have many friends who come from different countries and have such opposite backgrounds, I am quite used to re-consider my own culture. Apart from comparisons, I’ve also learnt many new things about USA that I didn’t know before (or knew superficially). The most important topics we discussed are: family life, school system, university life, politics, electoral system and elections, immigration and multiculturalism, cinema and stereotypes (Italy-America and North-South America). Moreover, I’ve learnt something about customs and conventions of talking with people.For example, I realized that the typical Italian way of repeating "thank you" and "sorry" hundreds of times may sound terribly tedious, or that Italians tend to greet a lot, while the Americans tend to limit to a short "hi" and "bye". Another thing that I noticed is that sometimes when I tried to correct my peer's mistakes she was afraid to talk and when I asked her to correct mine she didn't do it. At that point I spoke to her directly and asked her if she was offended or intimidated. Her answer was no, of course, but since that I tried to limit my corrections, even if I would have appreciate her correcting me. As far as I am concerned, I tended to ask whatever I could. Many people are shy or do not want to bore with silly questions, but I've learnt not to care about it and ask. That's why when I couldn't understand something I asked my peer to write it down or to repeat it slowly.
In conclusion, my exchange experience was good. There were just a couple of things that made me feel uncomfortable, but I think they didn't affect my learning process. So I'm really happy I had the chance to take part in the project.