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Italian Minor

The Italian Minor is designed to prepare students to communicate in the language and explore Italy’s role in today’s world. Students will be looking at Italy's past and present contribution to literature, art, music, history, philosophy, politics, and economy. The minor is designed to offer UNG students an excellent opportunity to gain cross-cultural awareness by engaging in communicatively intensive classes from beginning to advanced levels. Students will also have the chance to participate in a wide range of events on and off-campus like lectures, movie nights, conversation hours, cooking classes, tutoring sessions and other events supported by the program and by the language clubs.

Students majoring in areas – such as art, business, communication, education, film and digital media, history, modern and classical languages, politics and international relations – will find the Italian Minor an ideal companion to their specific field of study.

Why Study Italian?

Italian is currently spoken as a first language by 80 million people and as a second language by 250 million people, making it the fourth most studied language in the world. The Italian culture’s influence is recognized not only in Europe but also all over the world. Italy leads the UNESCO ranking for most World Heritage Sites and it is the fifth most visited country in the world.

Moreover, Italy is the third largest economy in the Eurozone, after Germany and France. It is the ninth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the tenth largest trading partner of the US. An estimated 7,500 American companies do business with Italy, and over 1,000 US firms have offices in Italy, including Chrysler, IBM, General Electric, Motorola, and Citibank. Knowing Italian is thus greatly beneficial in several career fields. Italy is a world leader and major exporter to the US in the fields of the culinary arts, fashion, interior and graphic design, machine tool manufacturing, robotics, shipbuilding, space engineering, construction machinery, and transportation equipment. An Italian manufacturing company that specializes in forestry machinery, the FAE Group, just expanded operations in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

Italy is also a close ally of the US and cooperates with US agencies and entities in many parts of the world. There are seven major active US military bases in Italy, two of which are solely operated by the US Army, and more than 100 US facilities throughout the country.

Study Abroad Opportunities

In collaboration with UNG Center of Global Engagement, the Italian program plans to organize a faculty-led study abroad program to Italy with a focus on Italian language and culture starting from Summer 2020. Participation in the study abroad program would be strongly advised for minors in Italian.

If you are interested in going to Italy this summer, please contact the Center of Global Engagement or professor Jessica Cappellini for further information.


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