ANDREA ARGUETA

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Personal importance of task 

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My trip to Italy is important to me for several reasons. To begin with, it highlights my value of pursuing education. No matter if it is in a formal or informal setting, I have always enjoyed opportunities where I may expand my knowledge. Plus, this trip was the start towards going outside my comfort zone. By traveling to Italy, I exposed myself to a culture that I have always been curious about and explored a society that is different from my own. The impact of my trip on others was being able to make meaningful relationships with locals and share knowledge about my own culture with them to help them expand their knowledge about Hispanic traditions.

 

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 Tasks accomplished 

• Visited a designer goods factory to understand the complete process of creating luxury purses from drying, dying, and finished products.

• Visited various museums such as: Villa Borghese, the Vatican Museum, the Uffizi Gallery, among others to understand Italian culture and history.

• Went to the water treatment center Aquarno, to understand how wastewater is repurposed into industrial materials.

• Visited an Italian trash center to understand what types of trash were able to be reused and what consumers could do to ensure their waste is being properly managed.

• Went to a Ventian institution to understand how the Italian government was planning on aiding Venice with rising sea levels.

• Climbed into an aqueduct to understand how the water is recycled and the complexity of the Italian aqueduct system.

• Went out of my comfort zone and traveled to various Italian regions like the Amalfi Coast, despite only speaking basic Italian.

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Leadership competencies gained

Responding to ambiguity: Before leaving for Italy, I felt as if ambiguity would never be something I struggled with. Traveling to Italy showed me a different kind of ambiguity that helped grow my comfort circle and reflect on how it was being expanded. For instance, the first day we were in Venice, we had the entire day to explore. Our professor wanted to show us the market but afterwards we would be free to roam the city to our hearts content. While others were excited at the prospect of having no agenda, it overwhelmed me to think that I could craft my own agenda for the day. The complex labyrinth of the Venetian market including its small walkways and hidden passages overloaded my senses, ushering me to return to the hotel to recover. It would be an hour later after practicing self-care that I was able to construct a vague plan for my day, facing the ambiguity with a new perspective. After this experience, I began to understand how I react to ambiguity in a foreign setting and how to best deal with my unease in ambiguous occasions. I realized that although I enjoy spontaneity, I am more of a planner. Flexible agendas allow me respond to ambiguity in a healthy manner and allow me to shift to cater to my curiosity. It allowed me to acknowledge areas of progress and how I might address ambiguity in a foreign country the next time I travel.

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Confidence: In the first couple of days, in Italy my confidence was low. Being in a country with a language that I couldn’t quite wrap around my head, in blistering heat, and in a city where I had no relatives, simply drained all my confidence. Because of this, I stayed around my group of friends at all times during the first week and practiced my Italian rarely due to the fear of being ridiculed. With time I familiarized myself with my surroundings and began to explore opportunities outside my comfort circle. I decided to go on spontaneous grocery runs and visit churches on my own after class. I would begin to practice my Italian with locals asking for bus tickets or making my daily purchases. These small actions helped me build my confidence after realizing that Italian locals were willing to help me practice my Italian and point me in the right direction. This confidence traveled with me all the way to Florence, where I ventured to museums and shops across town. If I would have stayed in my comfort zone, and only gone out with a group, I would not have been able to watch gorgeous sunsets, learned more about the history of Salvatore Ferragamo, among other adventures.

 

Self-understanding: Before the trip, I believe that I had a fair amount of knowledge concerning myself. Little did I know how much there was to explore about my identity, strengths, and the expanse of my comfort circle. I had begun to learn about the significance of repeated reflection beforehand, yet became frustrated when I couldn’t formulate an answer to the questions I had posed myself. In addition to this notion, it was difficult for me to maintain this routine of continuous reflection and I soon drifted away from it. Arriving in Italy, I wanted to jot and describe everyone one of my experiences in the efforts of remembering all the details. I believed that this would also help me understand more about what I enjoy and pay attention to. Also, as a part of the curriculum we were required to write bi-weekly reflections after visiting historical sites and museums. Throughout these reflections, I began to notice a pattern concerning my favorite sites and what connected them. Afterwards, I pieced together the pattern and discovered my interest in technology. These continuous moments of reflection helped me identify my interested in technology, which then assisted me when it came to deciding what my final project would be about. 

 

Resiliency: Before this trip, I thought I knew what resilience looked like. Yet, little did I know how much it could change in a foreign country. From a language barrier and cuisine to transportation; every turn of my trip was a challenge on its own. An example is our weekend trip to the Amalfi Coast. In order to get to Agerola, we would have to take a train to Naples then an inter-city bus to Agerola. We arrived in Naples and decided to grab some quick lunch before setting out in search of the bus stop. We returned to the train station thinking it would be near yet, nowhere to be found. We walked to the nearby corners and google maps only confused us even more so. After walking to different stops in the surrounding area, we finally managed to find the correct stop. These mini challenges were experiences that helped me deepen my understanding of resilience and from which I had to bounce back and learn from in order to fully immerse myself into the Italian culture and society. Coming back, resilience was refined for me. Presently, I understand that resilience is not limited to bouncing back after a bad grade or a bad interview, it can be a rebound of our daily ups and downs as well. Or in my case, finding the right bus stop.

 

Positive Attitude: It is easy to be positive when you have friends and family right around the corner. But, being in a country where I barely spoke the language and knew no one, there were many instances that made it difficult to have a positive mindset when I didn’t feel comfortable. For example, my first night in Rome was one of those moments where it was difficult for me to maintain a positive attitude. I was just starting my trip and already had grown homesick. It was difficult to push past my negative notions and acknowledge the benefits of going abroad. In order to view things in a positive perspective, I reminded myself of the amazing possibilities that could happen during my time in Italy. These exciting prospects helped me shape my challenge with homesickness into an enthusiastic approach to growth. This positive framing helped me enjoy the rest of my trip and helped me throughout the instances when I felt homesick. To enjoy the remainder of my trip, I had to frequently remind myself that I had come to experience something new and that it was okay to not be completely comfortable and that many other amazing experiences were left to be discovered. 
 

Lessons learned & Future Oriented Statement 

In the futuristic picture, I see my resilience in response to the ambiguity experienced in Italy to be helpful the next time I travel to another country and feel uncomfortable with the unknown. I will be able to recall upon the times where I felt insecure, but pushed through and recall the beautiful experiences following after those efforts. This would in turn help me enjoy another adventure more so since I will have the tools and memories to revive my confidence in my capabilities. Overall, the lessons learned from this trip overlap with my ability to be resilient in a time that I had little motivation to overcome and see what was on the other side of my comfort zone.