The America-Italy Society of Philadelphia
Vittorini Award
since 1963
for Undergraduate Excellence in Italian at University of Pennsylvania
Vittorini Award 2025
Alan Raskin
My name is Alan Raskin, and I am currently an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.
My experiences made me even more passionate about studying Italian: learning another language and culture feels to me like building a bridge to another way of life.
Outside the classroom and workplace, I’m finding new activities to try and fail at.
Whether I’m falling in mud on an ambitious hike or getting yarn tied into knots between knitting needles, I love to take on a challenge. The only feeling better than getting great at something you’re good at is getting good at something you’re bad at, so I see my “failures” as the “getting good” part. It’s this craving for unfamiliar experiences that ultimately led me to want to study abroad.
- Alan Raskin -
Week 2
After over a full week in Milan, I feel myself settling into the space I’m living in. Finally, I can get around my little corner of the Porta Lodovica neighborhood without Google Maps as a crutch, and I’ve made my way around the Bocconi campus.
Although my economics and computer programming classes haven’t started, this week marked the beginning of the Italian Crash Course, a two-week intensive Italian class building on a previous semester of Italian I took at Penn.
This course has opened my eyes to how the Italian language may be somewhat easy when trying to be understandable, but becomes very difficult when the goal is to speak well. Our professor strives to interweave the nuances of idioms, North/South language differences, and hand gestures into the necessities of verb tenses, prepositions, and vocabulary.
As an American, learning the basics of communication in Italian feels similar to when we learned Spanish or French in school. On the other hand, the hidden language details that fluctuate with the time of day, the person you’re speaking to, and the meaning of your words have been much more difficult to grasp. That being said, it is the distinction between getting around in Italian and (hopefully, eventually) being a fluent speaker.
Italian, unsurprisingly, is a necessary skill to have when in Italy, even in such an international and diverse city like Milan. Discomfort comes with studying abroad, and speaking slowly, simply, and with errors in the majority language has proven to be a great discomfort. Still, the Italians around me have been very helpful in overcoming it.
Though my efforts to not sound like a foreigner have proven to be futile, even the English-speaking Italians I’ve spoken to are willing to respond in Italian and repeat themselves so I can understand. They counter my embarrassment with “Va tranquilo” - “It’s okay,” and remind me that with patience and continued effort, my spoken Italian will improve in my months here. So, I’m holding faith in that while I keep trying.
This week has not only been learning, but more exploring as well. Milan’s intense rain has made it difficult to spend much time outside in parks like Sempione, but at least it gives me an excuse to buy boots here.
I’ve also been attending some of the student events happening for the welcome week in the evenings, which has been a great way to meet new Bocconi students. These events have brought me to some interesting places, including Idroscalo Lake near the Linate Airport and Gattopardo, a 19th-century church which was deconsecrated in the 1970s and became a disco in 2001. It’s also brought me back to the Galleria at night for a less crowded experience and to a nearby gelato chain, Venchi, where I will be trying all the flavors.
To wrap up the week, I attended a day trip with Bocconi’s Erasmus Student Network to learn more about wine production in Nizza Monferrato in Italy’s Asti province.
Bersano, a wine producer local to the area, was kind enough to let us into their wine museum, winery, and vineyards. We received a lesson in the history and present of wine making, from the years when a community wine press had to be manually operated by several people to today, when wine in the area is agriculturally protected under the DOCG quality label, and only 18 local municipalities have the right to label their wine “Nizza DOCG”.
We were taken through the cellars and got to taste some of the red, white, moscato, and rosé wines Bersano produces. Our Bersano guides ended our trip with a walk through some of the vastness of just one plot of the Barbera grape vines.
Although only twenty people will pick the 50+ acres of grapes in that plot, we were told how a community of engineers, farmers, innovators, and more come together to preserve this historic and refined aspect of Nizza Monferrato. Whether it was wine production, language, or weather-appropriate clothing, I learned a great deal this week, and I’m looking forward to more of it.
Week 1
This past Tuesday, I landed in Milan and moved into my apartment for the semester. I planned to come a bit early, so this week I had no classes or orientation activities – these days were purely mine to get settled.
On par with Italian bureaucracy, my first tasks were to secure my tax code (codice fiscale) and permit of stay application (permesso di soggiorno). Although I accepted I wouldn’t do any sightseeing while handling these documents, I found myself taking many detours on the way to the post office to admire a building or explore a church. It’s possible that this is just the grass being greener on the other side, but I really do think there is a thoughtfulness and beauty in the architecture I’ve seen around Milan that just doesn’t exist in the USA, or at least Philadelphia.
A wrong turn led me to the courtyard of Santuario di Santa Maria dei Miracoli presso San Celso, a beautiful Catholic church with biblical statues surrounding the outdoor area. To my surprise, this was not a main tourist hub or in a particularly busy area; it’s simply a church where people pray that happens to be artistically and architecturally stunning. These sorts of art pieces in places that seem “random” continue to surprise me, as government offices and fast food chains all exist in a carefully designed exterior space.
Once my documents were squared away, I got out to do a little exploring in Milan. Not a far walk from my apartment are the Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, so I got to enjoy the rush of the crowd and the scenery there (but no shopping since I’m not ready to drop €1000 at Fendi).
Also, I secured tickets to visit the Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano and see Da Vinci’s original Last Supper painting. The strict rules, dim lighting, and 35-person limit in the room of the painting all clarify how important the preservation of the art is.
I'm grateful that the sights in Milan are open and available, but I'm a little surprised that many shops are not. Right now, it is ferie in Italy, so many working folks are away on vacation. This is excellent for labor rights for Italians, but not as much for consumers when many shops, salons, pharmacies, and tobacco stores (which sell necessary stamps for permits of stay, not just cigarettes) are closed. I knew that Italians took their vacation seriously, but I didn't realize that this vacation can stretch from two weeks to a whole month, with some stores having signs saying they'll be back in early September. It's both fascinating and a little frustrating. I just wish Google Maps had updated information on which stores are closed, that's all.
To celebrate the week, I went out to Genoa for the weekend. I’m definitely taking advantage of the frequent and cheap train tickets all around Italy. Fueled on Genovese pesto, I traversed the old port of the city and stopped by the black-and-white striped Cathedral of San Lorenzo. I ended the day watching the sun set over the whole city in Spianata Castelletto, a truly picturesque experience.
On Saturday, I made a day trip to Sestri Levante, a nearby beachside town, where I spent the entire day going between lounging on the shores and floating in the turquoise waters.
Needless to say, this was a weekend of views for me. My feet are in indescribable pain from the step count I’ve endured, but it has been more than worth it. This week has been a tiring but beautiful introduction to my time in Milan, and I’m excited to do more than see the sights (but also to see more sights).
“The America-Italy Society of Philadelphia promotes friendship and cultural understanding between the Republic of Italy and the United States of America”
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