Student Life

Orientation

Arriving & Settling In

Upon arrival, students are welcomed at the Florence airport (Peretola) by il Sillabo on-site coordinator and are accompanied to their assigned housing. On-site coordinator will accompany students at their apartments.

Before your arrival

Please let us know your arrival schedule as soon as possible - preferably 1 week in advance.

Orientation

Each term begins with a three-day orientation which students are required to attend. At this time, students are introduced and are helped in their adjustment to everyday life in Italy. The program includes sessions which provide information on academics, housing, living in San Giovanni Valdarno, and advice for health and safety issues. During orientation, and later, the coordinator will be assisting students, mediating between students and instructors and locals, and generally functioning as the adviser/advocate for students who attend the program, arranging different sessions on personal safety for newly arrived students. The program includes also walking tours, and provides students with the opportunity to purchase textbooks and sign-up for field trips. Students will also meet with local authorities who discuss safety and legal issues and address questions and concerns of US residents abroad.

After a first enthusiastic or troubled adjustment, step by step the students start adapting to the new life style, the different alternation of a concentrated academic program and the relaxing atmosphere of our town. Ritual late afternoon walking through the main street, pleasant aperitifs in one of the center cafés, field trips around Tuscany, shopping in the near outlets: all these things make the stay in San Giovanni an authentic experience. Being in a small town, with specific, original historical and cultural characteristics, helps making friends with local people. New friendships help students to face the first difficulties caused by adjusting to some of the strange, odd facts which make Italy (in fact Europe) so different: restaurant and store closing hours, mealtimes, different food, trash collecting, stairs instead of elevators…

Culture shock, adaptation to a new way of living, or simply different foods can cause both emotional and physical difficulties that is why il Sillabo offers acculturation counselling services for students. Not only a full-time staff member, who is available to help students with the personal, social, and cultural concerns they may have during their time here in Italy, but all the instructors and staff involved trained and prepared to help students to face and enjoy their experience in Tuscany.

For more specific or complicated problems, the school maintains and regularly updates an extensive referral list of English-speaking mental health professionals and physicians in Florence.

In case of extreme emergency, students have access to a 24- hour emergency cell phone number.

Orientation also includes:

• Permission to Stay Forms
  During orientation, students will sign their permit forms. The forms are completely processed by the Insitute's staff and are included in the program fee.
• Book Purchases
  All students are required to purchase the books that have been assigned by their professors. The books will be available for purchase during orientation, unless otherwise stated by the professor.