Caris is an Italian language teacher and Program Coordinator at Istituto Europe in Florence. She loves her job and her students because every day is a new adventure and she always learns something new.
She has a Details II Certification for teaching Italian. She also speaks English, Spanish, and Slovenian, and she studies Arabic. She is also a performing arts journalist and writes reviews about dance, theatre, and cinema. She likes to travel and learn new languages
What is your favorite travel memory?
Without doubts, my favorite travel memory must be my last trip to Turkey. It was short but intense! A full immersion in local culture and history. A rich encounter between the Western and Eastern World, in anything going from the architectural shapes to the locals’ ways of living.
I’ll never forget it.
How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?
Certainly! I grew as a person and extended my professional knowledge by attending to a variety of professional tasks and through the experience matured with my colleagues and students. I must say: I sense my growth to be a continuous process, both professional and humanly.
There’s really nothing better than listening to the stories gathered by students from all around the world! Every story is a journey, every time.
What is the best story you've heard from a return student?
It’s really hard to just pick one. If I necessarily have to, it’d have to be the following: we had once a student who, upon arrival at our institute, didn’t know a single word of Italian and didn’t have any travel experience at all. In the end, he managed to surpass his period in Italy egregiously, having apprehended a good deal of Italian language – which he now speaks very fluently.
I’ve recently heard from him and he’s currently traveling through Italy and he so fell in love with our culture and lifestyle that he is planning of moving here soon. That's a happy ending!
If you could go on any program that your company offers, which one would you choose and why?
I will not give you just one but two programs, in a combo. The Italian language course in combination with the History of Art module. It’s the perfect blend of Italian language, tradition, art, and lifestyle.
There’s really nothing better if you love Italy and you’re looking for a full immersion in Italian culture.
What makes your company unique? When were you especially proud of your team?
What really makes our institute unique among others is, I think, the way in which we take care of each of our students and interns.
We want to strike the perfect balance, insofar as it is important to be professional as much as to be friendly. We proud ourselves of being a communicative and welcoming team for any student.
What do you believe to be the biggest factor in being a successful company?
The main factor for a successful company is certainly being receptive and accommodating with the clients’ needs. As they say, after all, “the client is always right!”. Secondly, but no less importantly, there is the capacity to innovate and evolve without at the same time losing one’s business identity and coherence.