Together with a friend, I went to Italy from October till December 2006. We were the first students from our school, the ROC Friese Poort, to be selected to attend classes at the Technical Institute ‘Alessio Tramello’. Also we did three short internships at several architectural and constructional companies in the afternoon.

Technical Institute ‘Alessio Tramello’

We attended classes at this institute every morning, five days a week from 8 AM – 1 PM. We studied subjects like Topography, Building construction, Plants, Drawing, Italian and English. We met a lot of people, learned a lot about the ‘Italian way of construction’ and had a great time at this institute.

Internships

We did three different internships. In the first 3 weeks during our visit, I went to the architectural company owned by mrs. Mitzi Bollani. Mitzi Bollani is the vice-president of an European expert group on accessibility and specializes in making buildings accessible to people with various handicaps. During this internship I performed a variety of duties including creating a 3D model of a large block of apartments, drawing various 2D and 3D models of buildings and drawing several pieces of furniture.

During the fourth week, we did an internship at ‘Edilstrade’. This is a large building construction company in the Piacenza region. This internship was less practical, but we learned a lot about Italian architecture, and visited an Italian university and a hotel.

The last internship lasted four weeks. Together with my classmate, I went to Cooperation Construction Val d’Arde (Firenzuola). This is a large architectural and construction company in the city of Firenzuola. During this internship, we spoke with the architects, discussed different aspects of construction with the firm’s employees and saw many construction sites in Piacenza, Firenzuola, Parma and other towns.

The experience

This was a great experience. I learned a lot about the Italian way of construction, the Italian school system and the Italian people. I saw many, many places and visited a lot of cities in the whole country. I visited Rome, Milan, Florence, Parma, Genua, Cremona, and of course Piacenza. Also, I went to the Alps and Rome.