When No Longer in Rome

Becca Kimock on her study abroad trip in Florence, Italy. (Photo supplied by Becca Kimock)

When Becca Kimock imagined her study abroad experience, she certainly didn’t picture it being interrupted by a pandemic.  

Unfortunately, as Becca and 20 other Elon students arrived in northern Italy, so did the coronavirus.  Confirmed cases of the virus shot up and Elon ultimately made the decision to suspend the Florence study abroad program and bring the students and faculty there back to America.  

“When I left for abroad in late January, I was aware of the coronavirus and its impact around the world. I never thought that it would impact me personally,” Becca said. 

The program operated as planned for only a month, but it was a great one. “I quickly got used to cappuccinos for breakfast and pasta or pizza for dinner, and I fell in love with the Italian lifestyle,” Becca said. She was also able to travel to several Italian cities, the Tuscan countryside, London and Belgium. “It was the best month of my life,” she said.  

Everything took a turn rather quickly, Becca expressed. “Monday morning was the first time the virus became a concern, as we realized it had reached Italy, but all our professors assured us everything would be fine and we had nothing to worry about. By Tuesday evening, we were being sent home.”

Becca found out she was being sent home in the middle of registering for Elon housing next year. “[My] selection time for senior year housing was the same minute that the email came in, and it was the most stressful 60 seconds of my life. I was mid-texting my roommates at Elon about housing when I heard sobs from the other room and I looked down to see an email from Elon. I knew without having to read the email that we were going home,” she said.

After that was a whirlwind. There were tears, plans to be made for flights home and a sleepless night to come. “I was stunned,” Becca said, understandably. “There was only one case in Florence, the city functioned as normal, and we believed Elon made the decision based on the hysterics created by the media.”

Having her time in Italy cut short was undoubtedly upsetting for Becca. She had never been to the country before and had made plans that she was looking forward to for the rest of the semester. “I didn’t even get to Rome. Who studies abroad in Italy and doesn’t go to Rome?!” she said.

So once they got the news, the students in Italy had to make the best of the time they had left. “It was literally like ‘you have one day to live, what do you do?’” Becca said. “So we tried to fit everything into one day, which was a lot, but we were successful. From seeing Michelangelo’s David to bargaining in the leather market, we did it all… By Thursday morning at 3 a.m., most of us were on a bus to the Rome airport, heartbroken and homebound.” 

Since then, over 3,000 people in Italy have been diagnosed with Coronavirus according to the New York Times, and Becca has had the time to process the fast-paced events that brought her back from Florence. “Elon made the right decision to protect its students. I cannot speak for the other students on this program, but I am personally not angry at Elon. I’m disappointed in the situation, but I believe Elon was smart in getting us out ahead of time, before travel bans were placed and we were stuck in a foreign country for who knows how long,” she said.

Becca is already looking forward to going back to Italy, but for now she is back at Elon taking classes and healing.