Tiffany Prizzi – Global Learning Advisor
tiffany.prizzi@wsu.edu
Tiffany Prizzi joined WSU as an advisor in the Global Learning office in June 2020 after finishing her master’s degree in Student Affairs Administration at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR. As a faculty-led advisor, she assists faculty from the Carson College of Business and the College of Education to create faculty-led study abroad trips around the globe. She also advises CCB and COE students on the opportunities they have to go abroad during their time at Washington State.
Interested in Italy? Ask Tiffany about her own study abroad trip to Siena, Italy, in 2015 where she studied Italian, Wine Marketing, and Art History – the trifecta of classic study abroad courses taught in Italy. She went on weekend trips to Venice, Milan, Rome, Naples, and Sicily, where her family has roots. Though no longer as fluent as she used to be, she can give students some words and phrases in Italian to use while they partake in their own study abroad program in Italy.
What advice would you give students preparing to go abroad?
Don’t overpack. While that seems obvious, what I mean is don’t overpack your perceptions of what the experience you’re about to have will look like. Just leave them at home, because I promise the expectations you set for yourself will never live up to the experiences you never knew you wanted to have. For example, before I went to Italy, I read up on how great an experience it would be to stay with a home-stay family, where you live with a family and they feed and house you, as your own family would. Given that I had a high language fluency, I thought this was the only way to experience being abroad and using my language capability thoroughly. When I got to Italy, I was disappointed to find out that my home-stay fell through, and I ended up with a room in an apartment filled with Italian graduate students. Nervous, and reeling from the unexpected (I don’t take surprises well), I struggled to find my bearings. Once I did, living with 16 other students (5 Americans, 2 Dutch girls, and 9 Italians), became the best part of my trip abroad. Looking back, the experience I had was exactly what I needed at the time. Don’t let your high expectations cloud your own experiences, be they good or bad. Oh, and seriously, don’t overpack on the clothes.
What advice would you give students returning from abroad?
Write everything down. Take a weekend or two when you get back to the U.S. and write down every experience you had while abroad down on paper. Do your future-self a favor, and write down what you can, when you can. You’ll thank yourself 5 years from now when you’re wanting to remember the name of the restaurant where you had the best tiramisu of your life, or the joke you thought was so funny on your bus ride back from a weekend excursion. Those memories will eventually fade and the only thing you’ll have to look back on are the photos and the stories behind them. Write it down!
What advice would you give students engaging globally from home?
Don’t be afraid to ask questions to get perspective. Reach out to professionals in your field abroad. People love talking about themselves, so chances are you won’t be rejected for a networking chat if you ask nicely enough. Get to know how they got where they are and ask questions about their experience doing it abroad.
What is one of the most important lessons you learned abroad?
What you learn and how you cope will become skills you use for life. My luggage didn’t show up in the Rome airport on the day I arrived to start my 4 months in Italy. I cried in the bathroom for an hour before mustering up the strength to go talk to the baggage claim people about it. My bags didn’t come for another 2 days, but by then, I had bought what I needed to get by. Having that experience up front made me realize if I could handle that, I was capable of anything and I left Italy a more resilient and stronger person.
What is your favorite part about working in international education?
I love getting students excited to go abroad on their own trips. Whether you’ve always planned on going abroad, or just realized you could make it work, it’s an exciting time to plan and think about what your life could be like while studying abroad. I enjoy that enthusiasm and love that I help students make it a reality.