STAFF WRITER

As the semester draws to a close, students who are studying abroad are beginning to make their way back to Fordham in time for the spring semester.

Maggie Joy, FCRH ’15, is a music and English double major who is currently studying at Loyola Chicago’s John Felice Center in Rome. She says that the most enjoyable part of being abroad is the ability to travel freely. Joy enjoys how inexpensive travel is, especially when she uses Ryanair, which takes her to various places for E30 roundtrip.

“No matter where you go you’re going to have a fantastic time,” Joy said.

Besides exploring the historic and picturesque sites that Rome has to offer, from the Colosseum to the Trevi Fountain, Joy has also explored Italy and nearby countries such as Germany, Greece, Ireland, Morocco and Turkey.

During her time abroad, Joy enjoyed running into Fordham students and visiting friends. “It’s a weird combination of realizing how small the world is, but also how there’s so much I still haven’t seen,” she says. However, Joy states that what she misses the most about Fordham is her Fordham family, and that she cannot wait to come back to campus to see her friends. Being abroad during Fordham’s historic football season has also been difficult for Joy, who was in the band last year and has now downgraded from bleacher seats to her couch where she has been forced to watch the games online through livestream.

Liana Piacquadio, GSB ’15, finds herself feeling similar to Joy regarding her study abroad experience. She is currently studying at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business London Centre. She also enjoys the travel experiences that studying abroad has afforded her, saying, “[The Fordham students have] all spent so much time together and have gotten a lot closer.”

Piacquadio is excited to allow these new friendships to continue to flourish upon her return to Fordham.

She also states that she is “especially jealous of everyone who got to see our football team do so well this season,” and cannot wait to be able to experience a football game next season.

Dimitri Florakis, FCRH ’15, just returned from his semester studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia. Florakis says that he picked this unfamiliar location for his study abroad experience because “I figured I could go to Europe anytime, and I thought if I was going abroad I might as well go somewhere that I probably won’t have the opportunity to visit again.”

While abroad, Florakis traveled the east coast of Australia, visiting places such as Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef, where he went snorkeling and scuba diving, which he states was one of his favorite experiences abroad.

He found that the culture of Australia differs greatly from America’s, despite their shared language. Upon his return to Fordham, he is experiencing what he calls “reverse culture shock.” “It’s a little strange coming back to Fordham because I feel like a stranger in a familiar land, having been apart from my friends for a semester,” Florakis said.

Some of the biggest things he missed about Fordham were the scenic campus and the community surrounding the school.

“The school I went to in Melbourne was pretty large and I felt like a number there, but at Fordham I have never felt that way,” Florakis said.

While he missed the community and his Fordham friends, Florakis was also able to make dozens of friends from around the world.

He says, “One of my favorite things was meeting and befriending people from all over the world, including Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and London. Now that I have friends from other parts of the world, it has opened up new opportunities for me to travel the world.”