Today I had my final new class called branding. We talked about branding in packaging a good bit, so I was nervous for what this class might entail (since that branding lecture was very boring). The teacher, Alessandro Baici, was an interesting character. He is another professor who speaks English fairly well, only asking about words occasionally. He is expressive and opinionated. He also seems to have a bit of a warped idea of how Italian culture relates to American culture...
He started off asking us, surprisingly enough, to be punctual. All but one of our previous professors had come at least 5 minutes late to class, and class didn't start very soon after. We were trying to buy football tickets just before class, and thus were about 2 minutes late. In other classes this wouldn't have even been caught by the teacher, who was not yet in the room, but I suppose this teacher is different. It's not difficult to be on time, at least. Oh, and over half of the class did not show up. It has been that way for almost every class, so I think something is wrong with the student lists they were given.
Anyway, he goes on to ask what we think of Italy in comparison to our home countries. Allie was the first to chime in. She said, "Everything here is more relaxed." "What do you mean? Elaborate," the teacher replied. She struggled to find what she meant, landing on the fact that people don't answer their emails here. See, we've been wrestling with the fact that nobody answers you digitally for days at a time, ever since we were accepted to NABA. I think that if I were to offer a comment about how Italy is different than America, I would have focused on the positives instead of a negative; that Italy has better food, for example. It is a bit offensive to our Italian professor for the very first class, after all. But it is also a glaring difference between our countries. Well, I believe that set him off. He went on a rant about how decades ago, Italy used to be even more 'relaxed'. The thing was, he looked back at those times fondly. He said that people used to have time to think about responses when they got a letter, instead of rushing out a reply. Now foreign countries like America gained a faster rhythm and have been forcing it onto Italy. People used to have down time, after 5 and every weekend Italians had free time to do whatever they wanted. This was a much less stressful lifestyle. Now they work late into the night and even on weekends sometimes!
From my experience with the workforce here, I could not disagree much more. Nobody is in a hurry to get us anything; we still do not have our student cards after a week, and everyone generally does not want to deal with us. After 5 every office closes down and no one can be reached. On Sunday EVERYTHING is closed, moreso than in America. I am not sure which region he is talking about, but this area is still much more relaxed on doing their services than what I am used to. I can see how perhaps it might be faster than what he is used to, so maybe that is why he holds that opinion. Of course, I did not say any of this to him and I do not plan to.
So, clearly he was a bit upset. He did not raise his voice or anything, but the tangent he decided to follow tells me that. He also went on to complain about how exchange students always eat in class, which is extremely disrespectful. He said it has been scientifically proven that if you are eating while trying to pay attention to something, you are gaining less information. "If you go to the cinema and eat popcorn and soda, that is fine, but this is not the cinema where you go to relax and shut off. This is where you need to pay attention." I found that scientific tidbit very hard to believe; if any information is lost it is a minuscule amount, less than what is lost when I look down at my shoes or at the clock. I also found the cinema part a bit offensive, since I try to pay close attention to the films I watch and pick up on themes and messages. Film is an art form just like any other and I wish he would have spoke of it as one. Trying to see it from his perspective: I can see that watching someone eat in class might be annoying or distracting, and of course I will refrain from eating because he said that. And maybe Italy has different ideas about what movies are made for, more focused on simple stories that hold your attention than those in America. Of course those are popular in America, but I don't think they should classify all of Filmography. America is the motherland of film and we have many films that have more to offer than even a lecture. I will need to get used to accepting opinions I hear and disagree with as aspects of a different culture. I don't want to be close-minded, but I felt like some of his opinions were from his own close-mindedness. I will stay open to what he has to say.
Those unpleasant talks out of the way, he went into the components of branding and held my interest for a good while. He talked about all the different types of marketing, specifically direct marketing. He talked about how Internet shopping evolved from direct marketing and how ad mediums work together to make campaigns. He talked about how good brands hold their own brand strategy that gives their product an angle. For example, Pepsi's brand strategy in the 80s was to mock Coca-Cola directly and put its brand above Coke in the minds of the youth. Everything clearly had a lot to do with branding and I felt like I learned a good bit. Of course 3 hours is a long time for a lecture and it got more difficult near the end. Nonetheless the class was far more interesting than packaging and I hope it only improves. I hope that Alessandro does not continue to complain about American ideals and I hope that I can come to accept his Italian ideals. It just seemed strange because all my other professors were not like this This man specifically is more upset about modernization and advancement into the digital age than the others.
We will stay here in Milan this weekend, perhaps going to a museum or two. We originally were trying to plan a trip to Pisa, but now a trip to Tuscany (a region that includes Florence and Pisa) has been mentioned by Student Services. We will refrain from planning a trip to those cities until we know some more. Alessandro at Student Services says he has not yet started planning it. So where our next trip will be, I do not know. Planning train tickets are difficult and must be done ahead of time, so hopefully we get planning soon. Thanks for reading!
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