Re: Dreams
An article I wrote when I was an English Dept. ambassador in college. A love letter to my last semester of college.
“What Dreams Are Made Of:” A Senior English Major’s Semester Abroad in Italy
Cold, tired, hungry, bitter, and slightly nauseous — I landed in Florence, Italy, for the beginning of my study abroad semester with only one thing on my mind: the iconic American teen comedy film The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003).
As any person from my generation who grew up with excellent taste in film could tell you, the movie chronicles the adventures of Disney’s Lizzie McGuire during a school trip studying abroad in Italy. The audience watches as Lizzie navigates accidental stardom, lying lip-synching celebrities, and, perhaps most harrowing of all, the impending end of her junior-high career. Then the movie ends with a moving performance of the earworm classic, “What Dreams Are Made Of,” in which Lizzie McGuire and her pop-singer doppelganger tell their young audience – you guessed it! – what dreams are made of.
Almost two decades after this movie came out, the connection it created in my psyche between studying abroad in Italy and the fulfillment of one’s dreams is apparently as solid as ever. I’m sure my relating to the end of Lizzie’s junior-high experience as a senior at the end of an undergraduate experience myself also contributes to the connection. And despite somehow managing to resist the urge to launch my own revolutionary singing career in Europe, I did often find myself walking through the streets of Italy reflecting on the study abroad experience using the language Lizzie taught me. I mean, is this experience really what dreams are made of?
At the end of this semester, I can safely say Lizzie might have been onto something. As an English major, studying abroad might seem like a strange decision to make for one’s undergraduate career: Why go away to study something you could study in the States? I am lucky enough to say that this is my second semester studying abroad, and I would not trade either of those experiences for anything. In the classrooms of the SU Florence Center at the Villa Rossa, I was able to continue making academic progress in English and Literature courses that focused on prose and poetry, diversity, otherness, Tuscany, and traveling. Beyond the classrooms, I gained a more nuanced appreciation for the English language, linguistics, etymology, the power of literature and connection, and effective communication in general. There is truly nothing like badly playing charades at a grocery store, trying to buy a bottle of shampoo your first week alone in a foreign country, to make you appreciate your relationship with the English language.
Is studying abroad in a foreign country always wonderful? Of course not. Forget about worrying about “what dreams are made of” when the language barriers alone are occasionally enough to make you question if you should have left the States at all. You have to psyche yourself up just to order coffee some mornings. You feel awkward when you need to ask for directions to use the restroom. You are exhausted after dinners with your homestay family because your brain is constantly fighting for its life over a bowl of pasta trying to understand even one sentence exchanged while everyone talks over each other and the TV playing in the background.
But can studying abroad in a foreign country be consistently worth it? I think yes – at least, with the right perspective. You frequent a coffee bar enough to learn the names of the baristas there and they learn yours in return, and as the months pass by, you realize the conversations are becoming longer and more Italian. Or maybe one day, an Italian tourist family from a different region asks you for directions on the street and you are actually able to help them in their language. Maybe you brag to everyone you know you did this successfully for the next week. Or you develop so many inside jokes with your homestay family during those weekday dinners, there are some nights you spend hours at the table laughing so hard with them that half of you are crying by the time you all have dessert.
As The Lizzie McGuire Movie’s song ends, Lizzie and her doppelganger sing one of my favorite lines in the movie: “Yesterday my life was duller/ Now everything’s technicolor.” Arguably, this encompasses what the study abroad experience was all about to me, and maybe even what the English degree is all about to me, and really what the liberal arts education as a whole has meant to me, too. I like to think that at least some of the joy in pursuing this sort of experience and work is rooted in the understanding that one’s perspective on the world can always be more expansive, more nuanced, more inclusive, more vivid, and more connected with others. I am grateful that my semester abroad in Italy and my time pursuing this English degree have helped me develop the skills and perspective I need to see my life in “technicolor,” and I encourage anyone else who is privileged enough to pursue the same opportunities as me to use their time in college to do the same.
