Nearly Fluent in Italian!

I'd taken two years of Italian before I decided I wanted to go abroad. My mom found World Class Programs and I attended the full 4 weeks of the program. When I went back to school the next fall, my Italian teacher encouraged me to test out of the grade because of how fluent I had become! I was even worried before I went on the program that my Italian wasn't good enough but there were kids in my Italian Language class that hadn't even taken Italian before. The instructor gave each of us our own curriculum based off where we were in our proficiency so it didn't feel competitive and we were just working on improving ourselves the whole time. Most of our classes were outside and we were barely in the classroom! It's such a different experience than I've had before! My suggestion for future students is to go with an open mind! You're gonna meet people from all over the world, not just the US or Italy. Also, BRING WALKING SHOES! I only brought sandals and the 3rd day of the trip I asked if I could go buy shoes so my Italian instructor went with me and had me only speak Italian in the store as one of my assignments! (I wasn't quite as proficient then haha)