School: Parsons School of Design
Major: Product Design
Term(s) Abroad: Summer 2019
Host School/Program: Studio Art College International (SACI)
Host City/Country: Florence, Italy
Email Address: [email protected]
Why I Loved Studying Abroad
I love the environment and location SACI provided the most. Florence is a city that is full of the Renaissance environment. Every building, street, wall, and bridge has its own history. It provided a wonderful art
environment, especially for art students. In Florence, there are plenty of museums and galleries you can go to in your leisure time, and you can travel to other cities such as Rome and Venice during the weekend to feel different styles of art. When
you are studying in Florence, you learn not only from your courses but more from the city and the citizens.
My study abroad experience really brought a lot to me. For my sculpture class, I learned how to mix plaster and use it to build my own sculpture and figure out a better way to express my thoughts. I learned plenty of different ways to model in not only
plaster but also wax and alginate body model. I also spent a lot of time carving limestone and marble pieces. For my jewelry class, I learned the original hand-making method to join several pieces together and used different materials to make my own
rings and necklaces. For my conservation class, though I had never tried ancient methods and techniques before, I cleaned ancient drawings using those original methods and learned ancient formulas such as rabbit skin glue and ox bone. All in all,
these two months abroad really affected me a lot. I learned a lot of skills in Florence, and I believe they will help me a lot in the future.