Final comments on the exchange

This semester we had the occasion to do this exchange with Dikinson university and so to compare our way of perceiving life with that of people living in another continent. The main result of this exchange, to me, was to rethink some topics regarding different aspects of everyday life. Some things that are pretty obvious for us like the actual situation in the Italian society appears totally unknown to people from other countries, who see things from another perspective. Something that particularly stroke was that Dikinson students thought that “raccomandazioni” corresponded to “recommendations”, that is to a positive feedback a teacher gets. The single fact that there is no such concept in English – and therefore no word for it – means that the phenomenon itself doesn’t exist. Then another topic I found interesting was health care. Actually, I didn’t think it was so hotly debated in the US and that Americans feel like this system no longer works. If comparing ourselves with another culture implies to broaden our horizons, then this experience has certainly been a success.