Recommended for first time and repeat study abroad students.

Studying abroad in Milan, Italy with GE was a fantastic way to spend my summer and I would recommend it to anyone - people who are new to study abroad and those that have gone before (like myself).

On a day to day basis, the full Immersion Italian Language class was excellent, the professors actually care about you and want you to learn Italian as best as you can. I also think the class structure and professors are some of the best that I have experienced and I was able to learn basics very quickly.

My internship was in Accounting and I had a great experience. I enjoyed working in the office and more than able to contribute to my employer. Obviously with any internship on some days the tasks were not the most interesting but the office made an effort to show me how those tasks fit into the greater picture, and the majority of my efforts contributed to a single project that I was able to work on from start to finish. Overall I learned a lot about the accounting industry and small businesses in general.

The social trips are excellent, these are planned one day trips to places like Venice and Verona. I especially enjoyed these because they were easy to do, you just showed up and got a great experience in these places. Not only did we walk around checking out the sites that I would've done had I gone myself, but we also did things that made these trips special that I wouldn't have known about by myself. (For example, we got a tour of the Murano Glass Factory in Venice, and ate at Romeo's house in Verona, where I tried donkey which is a local delicacy.)

One final thing that I've learned while being on multiple study abroad trips with multiple programs is that no matter which program you go on the place is the same, London is always London, Paris is always Paris, and Milan is always Milan. The things that make a good study abroad experience great are the people. The GE Support staff cares about you, both your well being, your personal development and that you enjoy your experience as much as possible.

A specific example of the support of GE people that I would like to share was also my greatest difficulty that I encountered. My first weekend there I thought I had gotten appendicitis (luckily I did not) but appendicitis can become fatal very quickly. Now having a health scare in a foreign country is a terrifying experience in any circumstance but it is especially scary when you have just gotten there. I made the decision to go to the hospital to be safe, once I made the decision I no longer felt terrified. GE (specifically Eleonora - Thank you!!!) arranged for a cab to take me to the hospital within moments, she then met me at the hospital and was with me the entire time (until late in the morning) and then came back the next day (the hospital kept me overnight for observation). After this she continually checked in on me to make sure I was ok and other members of the GE staff did so as well. I was amazed and I am eternally grateful for the support of GE, I had only been there a week but they all still treated me as family.

I would recommend both studying abroad and doing so with GE.