“I’m an NYU Student Who Hated My Study-Abroad Semester in Florence”

HOW NOT TO STUDY ABROAD!

Geez, this reads like twaddle from a self-centered, angry, spoiled, entitled twit lacking in self-awareness – wow – as you’ll see, many news outlets the world over came to that conclusion:

But when my semester in Florence came to an end, I grew to despise the sights, hated the people, and couldn’t wait to get back home to my campus in New York.

Source: I’m an NYU Student Who Hated My Study-Abroad Semester in Florence

Why was this whiny writing considered newsworthy by Business Insider?

She discovers the people of Florence are not identical to the people of New York and gets upset about it. She learned nothing from her study abroad program! Which makes little sense as it turns out she had traveled much of the world before finishing high school (apparently early too), and grew up in Ukraine.

She then writes and publishes an essay – based on her sample size n=1 – that perpetuates a stereotype of the stupid insensitive American clog. Her rant has spread around the world (see below).

She is an international relations and journalism major at prestigious NYU – and thought studying abroad was a pointless waste of time… and thought we’d all like to read about her life, where everything revolves around her.

Oh wait, she’s already traveled all over the world, from her IG photos of herself and her essay about Iceland and list of countries on her LinkedIn page. She doesn’t need a stinkin’ study abroad – she’s already a global elitist!

NYU:

• Tuition and fees run $58,168 per year for 2022-2023.
• Housing costs run between $14000 and $18000 per year.
• Cost of studying abroad in Florence is estimated at $12,411 to $17.090.
• Total cost of 4-years at NYU is about $300,000 not including the study abroad or her frequent travels to Europe.
• The median household income in her hometown is $201k/year, per the US Census. Poor kid.

Her story was not well received:

• ‘Entitled’ American student sparks backlash for ‘despising’ every moment she studied abroad in Florence (msn.com)
• ‘Obnoxious’ student mocked for scathing review of studying in Florence – Mirror Online
• Exchange student slammed over ‘entitled’ rant: ‘Comes off as insufferable’ (yahoo.com)
• American student’s essay on ‘hostile’ Italians in Florence sparks outrage – NZ Herald
• oe24 on Instagram: “Das Auslandssemester in Florenz verlief für die junge US-Amerikanerin nicht gerade nach Plan. Italien verspricht tolles Wetter…”
• Di che cosa si è lamentata la studentessa americana che ha odiato Firenze? | Vanity Fair Italia
• There were over 500 comments on this thread when I reviewed it: There’s no support for her actions and many wonder, this constitutes journalism today?

Stacia Datskovska has much to learn. Why did she think this was a good topic for a published work?

For what it is worth, her parents are Ukrainian and she visited Europe at least twice per year growing up and previously worked in Italy. A native Russian speaker, she is also entitled to citizenship in Ukraine, by descent if she is not already a dual citizen (she grew up in Ukraine which does not itself recognize dual citizenship but there are some special situations for dual citizenship, particularly for a Ukrainian citizen who leaves to another country and gets citizenship there).

Unfortunately, she comes across as entitled arrogant self-centered, narcissistic self-promoting global elitist twit. She is the personification of globalist elite who appears to think she is smarter and better than everyone else … and especially better than the Italians.

She likely has skills to do better than that – but lacks the self-awareness to see how she appears to others. She needs adult mentoring.

File this under:

• How not to do a study abroad
• How not to be an idiot

Reminder: I had not been to Europe until 2022 – at the age of 63 – unlike the young woman above who had traveled the world (she is said to have skipped two grades and started college early – I only skipped one grade).  My lame country ‘s visited tally is 2 (not including the US and Canada.).

I would never insult the people of Italy or any other country. My goal in travel is learning – for travel I read a book on the history, and another on the culture of the country I will be visiting. In the case of my next country visit, I’ve spent over a year studying the language. I will visit with an open mind to learn. I expect things will go wrong and in ways different than I envisioned. That’s part of travel and part of life.