Study in ItalyItalian University: 7 curiosities - Marcela Oliveira

6 February 2020by Marcela Oliveira0

What is it like to study at an Italian university? Is there any difference between studying in Italy and studying in other countries? What are the main curiosities of Italian universities? It has many curiosities and it is worth checking especially if your intention is to study here.

Knowing the Italian university environment is very important to not be caught off guard, because of this, in this article you will know the main curiosities of Italian universities, how they work and how they are organized.

I found many odd things and I had difficulties, but I managed to adapt and learn a lot. As we know, “everything is going to be fine in the end” 😉.

 

• Italian university: the main curiosities

 

1) Classes all day long

In Brazil I always studied at a private university, studying at evening and working during the day. There are also evening courses here in Italy, but they are viewed with bad eyes, as if the quality of the classes and the content has decreased. Anyway, now you know that you have this option.

Traditionally, courses at Italian universities have a full regime. In other words, you study in the morning and in the afternoon, which makes it very difficult for those who intend to work, especially because the pace of classes is very hard.

Usually students do not work and those who work are harmed. Another option used by Italian students is working during the summer, on vacation’s time.

 

2) If you start studying in September


I thought it was very odd! The school year here in Italy starts in September and not in January. All this because of the summer, if there is one thing that is respected in Italy it is the summer 🌞.

This is another curiosity, as if you come to Milan in August, you will not find any Italian because everyone will be on vacation. Most establishments close. It looks like a ghost town.

However, everything starts in September, including the school year, therefore, if you are planning to come here to study “pay close attention to this detail”.

 

3) Classes last only three months each semester

That’s right! The semester is made up of almost three months of classes and two months of tests. This is a very important detail and I will explain it better.

  • Classes period – It is the time when classes are attended, usually classes last all day (morning and afternoon).
  • Test period – During this period you have no commitment to go to university. Or rather you only go to university on the day of the test. Each discipline has 2 to 3 dates available, you choose a date and you will take the exam.

An important detail about the exams is that if you don’t pass, you can repeat the exam either in the same test period or in the next ones. In Brazil it is quite different, as we have a single test date and if you fail, you must repeat the semester (including attending classes again, which does not happen here).

 

4) Classroom?

Another curiosity of Italian universities is that we have subjects where attendance is “mandatory” and subjects where attendance “is not mandatory”.

The difference between one and the other is simple. In compulsory attendance subjects the student can only take the test if he has attended classes. In “non-compulsory” subjects the student can choose whether to attend classes or not.

I sincerely advise you to always attend classes for two reasons:

  • First and of course, if you signed up to study it is better to use all available resources, including having the content explained by a teacher and being able to ask questions.
  • Second, “students who attend” and “students who do not attend” generally have two different content to study for the exam. In other words, the test of the student who does not attend classes is more difficult.

I told my experience during my master’s degree in another article, click here to read “my challenges at the Italian university”.

As you can see, Italian universities give great freedom of choice to their students. This will become even more clear in the next curiosities.

 

5) You can choose the subjects you want to study

That’s right you just read! At Italian universities we have a fixed and a variable study plan. Within the variable study plan, we have two classes of subjects:

  • Materie a scelta “within the area” – Within your study plan you can find a list of subjects from which you can choose two within that list. These subjects are usually part of your area of study. For example: I had a master’s degree in psychology and had a list of subjects within the field of psychology.
  • Materie a scelta “out of the area” – In this group you can choose any subject from any other course. For example: I could choose a subject in another college, for example: engineering, philosophy, mathematics, pedagogy, etc.

I think that this characteristic of Italian universities is very important in professional qualification, because it gives the possibility for the student to create their own study plan according to the objective of each one.

 

6) The grade 10 at the Italian University is 30

Now it’s the moment and the great mystery needs to be revealed 😉, because when we are used to the score from 0 to 10 it is a little difficult to understand the evaluation system of Italian universities.

In Italy, the grades have a scale of 0 to 30 and below 18 they say that you fail. To better understand, here is the outline for you to understand the evaluation system:

  • <18 = failed
  • 18 – 20 = considered a low grade
  • 21 – 24 = acceptable grade (within the average)
  • 26 – 28 = good grade
  • 29 – 30 = great grade
  • 30 LODE = excellent (a first-class honours degree)

What did you think? Complicated?

 

7) You can “decline” your grade

As I said previously, in the test period you choose the day of the test and you will do it. The novelty is that if you didn’t like the grade you received, you can “decline” the grade and take the exam again on another date.

This is very common! Italians are very attached to the grades they receive, as they want to finish university with a good grade average.

To give you an idea, my university colleagues rejected grades less than 27 and some only accepted from 29 upwards. That depended heavily on student to student.

Yes, my colleagues and I were all nerds … 👩🏻‍🎓.

 

Did you like these curiosities about Italian university? What curiosity did you find most peculiar? Did you like the style of Italian universities? Write in the comment what you think.

 

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Hugs and a good time,

Marcela Oliveira

by Marcela Oliveira

Marcela Oliveira, Brazilian, career coach and Master of Psychology in Organisation and Marketing. She became specialised in integrating foreigners into the Italian labor market, idealising the well-known free course Ricerca Attiva del Lavoro. In 2017, she founded the volunteer project called IntegrationNow.

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