During the fall semester of 2018, multiple students from the University of Bergamo lived and studied at Fairleigh Dickinson University, experiencing the novelties and challenges associated with any long-term stay abroad. These students, all hailing from various locations in Italy, had the chance to take classes taught in English, enjoy American nightlife at local hot spots like Morristown and discover what life can be like as a college student in the northeastern United States.

I happened to befriend these Italian students through a graduate Communication course, and it effectively changed the course of my semester socially, bringing new cultural oddities and differences to light in my understanding of how outsiders perceive our way of life in the United States.