CIMBA means Business Past Review

By Myranda H (Marketing., University of Northern Colorado) for

CIMBA: Paderno del Grappa - Undergraduate Program

What did you gain/learn from your experience abroad? Was it worthwhile?

Yes. It absolutely was. I can't yet even put down my understandings into words but I know that I have changed a lot and it became easier and easier to interact with different cultures the more I did it.

Personal Information

How much international exposure did you have prior to this program?	0-2 weeks
The term and year this program took place:	Spring 2010

Review Your Program

* Overall educational experience Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.	I understand that the classes needed to be two hours long in order to give us as much travel time as we had. However, I feel like I retained less information because we were required to do one or two chapters per class period.
* Host Country Program Administration On-site administration of your program	The administration office never quite seemed to know what was going on. They also did not have any form of discipline they followed up on.
* Housing: How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?	Most people had a shared room with one other person. All people had a bathroom in their room. Quite a few people had their own room (and bathroom). Some people in two-person rooms even had two bathrooms in the room so they could each have their own bathroom. One thing about the dorms on the campus there...no two rooms are exactly alike. <br /><br /> The only things I needed to buy in order to live comfortably in my room were hangers for my closet. We had maid service two times a week...they cleaned both times and one day a week they changed the sheets and towels. It was great!
* Food:	It was average Italian food...not horrible, not outstanding, just pretty average. What makes it slightly above average is the effort they put in a couple times during the semester to make us less homesick for American food. One night they served us hamburgers, hot dogs, guacamole, etc...it wasn't quite like the taste of home but it was nice to know they were trying!
* Social & Cultural Integration: How integrated did you feel with the local culture?	We had three gourmet dinners arranged for us. It was amazing to have a night where the students and professors got all dressed up and went out for a 4-hour dinner with many courses. It really allows students and professors to interact without the need to talk about classes or grades at all.
* Health Care: How well were health issues addressed during the program?
* Safety:	Health was not generally addressed by the program. However, there was a security office manned by a guard at the entrance 24/7 and a gate that was closed to cars without permission.
If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program?	Yes

Finances

* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget? (1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)
Not including program expenses, about how much money did you spend on food and other expenses each week?	When on campus...maybe 5 euro per week if I wanted to buy a sandwich or a drink. Otherwise I ate at the cafeteria for every meal and those meals were included in my tuition expense.
Do you have any general money-saving tips for future study abroad participants?	Everyone seemed to go crazy spending on drinks and travel at the beginning of the program and didn't have money left over at the end. Then the volcano thing disrupted their plans to get back home and they didn't have any money left to take care of themselves for a few days. Try to budget out your money ahead of time, including which countries/cities you are wanting to go to. Transportation is the most expensive cost. Then include about and extra $500 that you are not allowed to touch until the last week or two of your program when you can make sure you will not need it. That way if an amazing opportunity comes up for your last weekend you do not have to say, "I can't, I don't have any money left."

Language

How would you rate your language skills at the beginning of the program?	Beginner
What was the highest level language course you had completed prior to departure?	zero
If applicable, to what degree did your living situation aid your language acquisition?
Language acquisition improvement?	UNC needs to offer more language classes (Italian!) and the CIMBA program needs to schedule the interactions with the Italian students for earlier in the semester. We had this thing called, "Add a Seat to the Table" where we were paired up with an Italian student from campus and they took us out to dinner. If this had happened earlier in the semester we could have talked to that person whenever we saw them on campus or hung out on the weekends. However it happened on our last weekend on campus so we got to say hello and goodbye in the same dinner.

Other Program Information

* Where did you live? Select all that apply	Dorm
* Who did you live with? Select all that apply	Americans
* Who did you take classes with? Select all that apply	Americans

A Look Back

* What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program?	They advertise this program as being for business, journalism, and communications majors. However, everything else about the program (seminars, etc) is geared towards mainly business majors and that's what most of the courses are. Business students will have no problem staying on track with this program but other majors might find they can't find enough classes to keep them on track for graduation.

Individual Course Reviews

Course Name/Rating:	Sales Management
Course Department:
Instructor:	Sandy Fields
Instruction Language:	English
Comments:	I LOVED SANDY! She is my favorite teacher ever now. I learned so much about sales from her...even if I don't go into the field of sales I understand so much more about how to apply it to everything, from interviewing for a job to gaining clients. It was an amazing class.
Credit Transfer Issues:	I am still working on getting this class to count as a major course instead of simply a business elective. UNC has this same class titled, "Selling and Sales Management" and the syllabi are basically the same. CIMBA isn't currently approved by UNC so every class has to be approved by department heads.