I will be graduating high school in May

If you are not from an UE country you will need a Schengen visa and then apply for a permesso di soggiorno when you are here -    If you European Union then you can just come and look for work as long as you sort out your residency after 3 months. 

Hello Catrina,If you come to Italy, you will need to visit Tuscany! It's an amazing area wih a lot of attractions, good food and wine, and very nice people! :-)There are a lot of cities you can visit there: Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Siena, etc.People don't have a strong accent in Tuscany, so if you have never studied Italian, it will be easier for you.If you want to learn a bit of Italian before coming to Italy, you can learn Italian online with me (https://myitalianlessons.co.uk/italian-lessons-skype/). I also collaborate with a school in Siena. If you want more information about the school, please let me know.In bocca al lupo! (Good luck!)Valeria 

Ciao,
I suggest you a homestay language vacation in Bergamo, a beautiful medieval village and in Lake Como to be fully immersed into the Italian language and culture
You can visit my website for more info
https://italianhomestaylanguagevacations.wordpress.com/homestay-language-vacation/
Ciao
Elena

Hello Catrina,you can have a look at Italian courses and internship options in Florence here https://www.studiainitalia.com/en/study-and-work-in-italy/Congrats for your graduation!Raffaella

Italian is actually not that hard to learn. I have been living here for more than 2 years and it was very easy to learn the local language with its traditions