iltanen 2_2021

Ciao! My name is Leonardo and I am an Italian exchange student. Many of you have already gotten to known me, but today I will try to tell you more specifically about how I came to spend a semester here with you, far away from home. About a year ago, during a hot sleepless night in summertime I started wondering how cool it would be to spend a year in the United States. Then, I started talking alone, in English, at 4 am, trying to relate to those moments. I had always seen some people, for example some youtubers who traveled always and eve- rywhere, did what they wanted etc; they were special, different from the average, they had something to tell, and I have always admired them from far away. In the morning, when I woke up, I went to my parents and told them: "I want to go abroad for a year in America!!" I dreamed of that life, I thought that sooner or later my chance to change my life would come; I couldn't let it go, so I said to myself, “ Just do it!”. Another big difference is that in Italy, the high school is made up of five years (of course it also ends for us at the age of 19 ), where at the beginning you are assigned to a class, which will accompany you every day in all the lessons. Moreover, a classroom is also assigned as needed and not changed until the end of the year; therefore during the day it is always the teacher who changes classes and the class stays in their classroom. The lessons are made up of 55 minutes and there are usually 6 lessons each day; every two hours there is a small break to eat a snack, until the end of the day at 2 pm, when everyone can go home to eat lunch. For "snack breaks" in my school, there is a bar, which sells pizzas, focaccia, crois- sants, and even drinks. Tekstin taitto: Milja Saarikko Now that I am here, after almost three months, I can strongly suggest you to have this kind of experience, to do whatever you want, especially to get out of your comfort zone. It is the only way you have to grow, to expand your culture, to be happy with yourself. And maybe when you heard about me and the other exchange students in our school, you thought “that's cool!” This could easily be you, I'm sure because I was in the same situa- tion as you for all my life. I think doing this in Finland can be easier because the school here has a very open and modern atmosphere. In fact, the school in Italy is completely different from Kauriala. I believe that there are only 0.0001% of students who use digitized school materials, all books are bought in paper form. Since you cannot change the subjects during the five years, you can obvious- ly choose indirectly at the end of middle school with the choice of school. For example I have chosen the Liceo Scientifico, where you do Latin, Philosophy, Phy- sics and Chemistry in more than the "basic package" (Italian, Mathematics, His- tory, etc.), then for example, there is the Liceo Classico where in particular there is the study of Greek and Latin, and so on for each school. Our afternoons are usually busy, because we are assigned a lot of homework and also tests, since we do not have any "test week". Therefore, when the teacher wants, usually when you finish a topic, they plan a written test or a speaking test for the class. I hope that my story has helped you to take courage and do something crazy as I’ve done, of course if you have other questions, you can ask me those in real life or on Instagram.