Student Blog: Back to School: Fashion School in Italy

Going to a college in Italy has a very different system to the ones in the US or even in any other part of the world. Contrary to my friends in other colleges I do not pick any of the classes that I take. This semester I am taking some of the same classes as last semester and some of them have changed.

One of the biggest differences between school here in Italy to other colleges is the fact that in my first year classes are already so specific and correlated to my major. For example, one of my favorite classes I had last semester was called “material science and technology.” In this class we learned about different fabrics and fibers and their properties, the functioning of the supply chain in great detail and the creative processes for fabric manipulation. 

This class was super important since I would never imagine how pivotal all of this knowledge is even as part of the creative process. Being able to understand how everything works before selecting certain fabrics for projects and the properties that all of this have, and even how small choices such as where the cotton for a fabric has been grown can have on effect on how sustainable the final fabric can be. 

Some other classes that I have been taking this semester are graphic design, technical drawing classes, other kinds of drawing classes, pattern-making classes, art history, catwalk analysis and fashion collection classes. 

Something that I struggled with this semester is organizing my schedule. Since classes here do not follow a standard schedule and are more based upon the availability of the teachers this means classes are different every single day. Back home I was very used to having a weekly schedule, having classes until two pm, and doing exercise at 4 pm. Here, some days I would have class at 12 am until 3 pm, other days I would have classes that finished at 9 pm, some days classes starting at 8 pm and some days no classes at all. Additionally, most of my classes are practical and even though the tasks are not particularly difficult they are extremely time-consuming. This made it difficult for me to organize when I was able to do exercise, and also since my school does not have a cafeteria having to organize the time to cook my meals. 

This semester in order to organize my schedule I started making weekly plans for meals, to make sure I don't finish class wondering what I'm gonna eat. Sometimes even doing the cooking a few days earlier and freezing some of the food. I also changed the way that I did exercise. Before I used to go to the gym on Sundays, which was the only day that I did not have classes and another day in the middle of the week for about one hour. Now instead of only going one hour for two separate weeks throughout the day, I have started going to the gym every day for half an hour. I also bought a yoga mat to do pilates-style exercises in my dorm when I am not able to go to the gym. This has really been helping me regulate stress.