Brittany Curtis

Brittany Curtis spent her summer studying abroad at Temple University’s Rome Campus.  She took two business courses: a business ethics course and a risk management course.  In each class, she learned about American business concepts and contrasted them with European, and specifically, Italian business culture.  When not in class, Britney was dedicated to learning about Italian business by experiencing many different aspects of business.  For example, she visited many open-air food markets and other types of markets (pictured in two of her photographs), which are much more prominent in Italian culture than in American culture.  As a part of one of her assignments for her ethics class, Britney committed herself to buying only locally grown food for an entire week.  This experience helped her to immerse herself in Italian culture and it proved to be more difficult than she thought.  It also inspired her to continue this eat-local lifestyle at home, even though it is much harder to do in the United States because it clashes with our mainstream culture.  Britney also felt immersed in Italian culture because of the location of her apartment in Rome.  It was located in a residential district of the city, far from tourist attractions and restaurants with inflated prices.  This allowed her to really explore Italian culture and interact with Italian people without feeling like a tourist.