A lot of people warned me that I might have a cultural shock when I got here. I
always thought that I was prepared and already knew the differences between Italy
and the United States, but I was not.
The major differences that I noticed are food, mindset, lifestyle and the school
system.
The food is completely different and my body recognized it immediately. The first
months I was always feeling without energy. It’s a lot unhealthier because here you
eat more fast foods and sweets than we are used to: I found the same brand and
type of yogurt that I eat in my home country and here it still tastes sweeter. A big
change for me was getting used to the taste of butter because we mostly use just
olive oil and also remembering to ask every time to not put sauces on my meals,
like gravy, barbecue or ketchup that you add on everything.
However, I found also some American foods that I like and I’ve never tried before
like peanut butter, granola and ‘Cheerios’.
The mindset of both teenagers and adults is one of my favorite things about the
United States. You are very passionate, hard-working, competitive and patriotic
about everything you do.
For example, if you commit to a sport, you’ll give it 100% of your energy. You are
also very polite and welcoming to new people and always ready to have a new
friend.
Your lifestyle, in a lot of aspects, is very different than ours. Sports and physical
activities are always in your schedule and that means that you’ll often have or go to
see games/meets. In my opinion, the sport games create an atmosphere of strong
union between all the students of the same high school and a great way for parents
to talk and have a great time. We don’t have sports in our schools so we don’t have
games and we don’t have that feeling of defense, belonging and honor to our
institutions.
The school system is exactly the opposite. Italians have to attend High School for
five years, not four. In Italy we don’t have business classes, woodshop, drama,
journalism, creative writing and different types of physical education classes. We
cannot decide our classes, but we decide after middle school which type of high
school we want to attend; in base of if you are better/like more math, classical
subjects (Italian, Latin, Greek), art or you can go to a practical high school. Most
of the schools require that you go from Monday to Saturday. We don’t have school
dances like Homecoming or Prom. Teachers are very gentle, supportive and
friendly here while in my home country they are very strict and the personal life, of
both student and teacher, is completely private. We also have oral tests and written
tests are always on paper, since we don’t have a personal computer, and made up
of mostly only open questions that requires a long answer.
I think that coming from such a different country, has made me become even
more grateful of the place where I am and the possibility of understanding another
culture more than books could teach me.
