6 May 2025: Italian Tutor/LLA Strahinja’s Experiences with UIC Italian
6 May 2025: Italian Tutor/LLA Strahinja: My experience with the Italian program at UIC since 2022
As another semester is ending, I would like to reflect on my progress in Italian since my first days at UIC in August 2022. I have been taking Italian courses since my very first semester, so I think I can say I am well prepared for this topic.
When I first started choosing my classes at orientation, I had little idea which language exactly I wanted to learn, thinking that I would just get bored and frustrated as I had in high school with mandatory language classes that left much to be desired. That’s why I initially decided to avoid choosing a language course, instead only doing gen ed requirements to get a feel for what all the departments were like and what I found interesting. However, I quickly realized that one of my classes in another department did not catch my interest much, if at all, so I thought to myself that I might as well get the language requirements over with as soon as possible in order to be more relaxed in my later years.
A few days later I had the original course removed from my schedule and instead took Italian 101. There wasn’t really a deep reason why I chose Italian over all the other languages offered. I believe I just asked my parents for their opinion and they both thought Italian was interesting, so I decided to give it a shot and see how things go. I struggled with French in high school, so I was understandably a bit concerned about studying another Romance language. However, at least there was some familiarity that could help me out instead of being thrown into an entirely different world in linguistics by taking some other language which I would have zero relatability to.
I should clarify that I knew next to nothing about the Italian language. I was familiar with a few words related to food, but quite literally zilch aside from that. Did it make me worried? Partially, as I did not want to be stuck memorizing vocabulary for hours on end just to have a chance at using a new language.
Thankfully, my Italian 101 class was really enjoyable. The professor, Maria Iusco, was passionate about her native language and culture, and there was a level of understanding she had towards us students that it made learning a new language fun and not intimidating. The initial Italian program (100-level classes) was genuinely amusing and it made me wish to continue Italian past my second year of studies, as it seemed to become an opportunity to learn a new language, considering that I’d already been on a roll with Italian. I also got introduced to the possibility of being a peer tutor for the Italian language after completing Italian 104. The peer tutoring program, along with higher Italian classes at the 200 level, provided motivation and opportunity to keep practicing my language skills, to the point where I can now hold conversations with people well.
At the moment I am focusing on my Italian 300 class and my volunteer trip to Italy, which I am extremely excited for. After unfortunately not being accepted last year due to there being too large of a pool of applicants, this year I got in and am going to be working with young students near Milan in Italian. If I had to be honest, I had no clue I would end up doing all this just a few years after signing up for my first Italian class just to get it over with, but I do not regret making that decision and have found the past few years of studies highly enjoyable.