BOONE, N.C. – Claire Carson, a member of the App State softball team, spent a month of her summer in Florence, Italy, where she studied at Lorenzo de' Medici, one of the most distinctive and well-established study-abroad institutions in Europe.
Carson is a junior outfielder from Senoia, Ga. She took a class in Florence that taught the history of the Medici family, a banking family based in Florence that had a prominent impact on the Italian Renaissance and were patrons of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Galileo, among others.
Carson, who was always fascinated by the Medici family, recently shared her thoughts about this unique academic opportunity.
"One moment, you are in a class reading about it, and the next, you are in the chapel where it happened," Carson said. "We went to see the artists that the Medici family was a patron of to see their work first-hand. It was crazy to walk around in what we were studying; you can't do that anywhere else."
Outside of academics, Carson noted that her favorite parts of the trip were the food and the people she encountered.
"I was nervous to go in, knowing that I was all by myself," Carson said. "When I put myself in that situation, it allowed a lot of room for growth. I met lots of people from different backgrounds who I normally wouldn't be friends with but found myself traveling around Europe with them, which was an amazing experience."
Lorenzo de' Medici is a private institution that partners with schools throughout the United States and Europe for study-abroad opportunities. Carson went on to say that studying and living with the other students pushed her out of her comfort zone and allowed her to get to know herself better.
"I still talk to the friends I met every day," she said.
When Carson first learned about the opportunity, she was nervous that her status as a student-athlete would conflict with the chance to study overseas.
"I set up a meeting with the office of International Education & Development, wondering if it would be possible," Carson noted. "I was encouraged to learn that App State offers short-term study-abroad programs, as opposed to only having semester-long courses, which allowed me to go to Italy for just over a month."
Carson talked about how head coach Shelly Hoerner and the rest of the softball staff were incredibly supportive of this trip.
"In a lot of programs, coaching staffs want their players to stay home all summer to train and work on their sport," she said. "Coach Hoerner understands that as a student-athlete, it is easy to get wrapped up in the sport that I play, and that the chance to go overseas and find a larger perspective would be more beneficial for me as an athlete."
Though she didn't spend much time on softball fields during the month in Europe, Carson still got the chance to work out and run regularly, which was one of her favorite aspects of the trip.
"I got to run through all the history that I was learning about with the best views in the world, which helped me fall in love with running," Carson said.
When asked what advice she would give to student-athletes who are interested in study-abroad opportunities, Carson had this to say.
"Do not be afraid to miss out on your sport," she said. "It is common for us to find a performance-based identity of ourselves because we are perfecting our craft day in and day out, but it is essential for us to take a break to gain perspective. In the long run, when we have a bad practice or a bad game, it is not going to hit us as hard when we have already gained that perspective."
"I am proud of the work Claire has done," Hoerner said. "She is a go-getter and taking this opportunity to make herself more culturally diverse is pretty neat to see from a coaching perspective. Claire knows the expectations of being a student-athlete and takes that very seriously but she also has a great perspective on life. As a softball player and an individual, Claire adds so much value to our softball program here at App State."
More information about Appalachian State University's Office of International Education and Development can be found at https://international.appstate.edu/.
