Last week I ended the exams of my courses at the Università di Bologna. Time to do a recap and tell you about my exchange university, my courses, my professors, the other students… and the experience of learning during a catastrophe.
When I applied to study in Bologna they told me to focus my motivation letter on the university and the courses they have instead of stuff like “my grandma is from that region” or “I love Italian food” (yeah, one of that is an original quote from the advisor). My motivation till then was that I already started to learn Italian in my bachelor degree and was already in Bologna and liked it there, so I had to dig deeper. I found out that this is probably the oldest university of the world (at least as we know them today, and which is even more important, it is continuously-operating since its foundation in 1088), very prestigious and women were allowed much earlier then anywhere else. Some source (unfortunately I don’t found it anymore) told me they were allowed since the start, but I am not sure about that. I do found the information of the official website of the Università, that there maybe was a Bettisia Gozzadini teaching in the public squares in the 12th or 13th century, and that they allowed female teachers from the start. What I know for sure (because I learned about her in one of my courses) is that Laura Bassi was the first woman worldwide to get a chair at an university. In 1732 she got the chair of philosophy and in 1776 the one in experimental physics, teaching Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Chemistry, Hydraulics, Mathematics, Mechanics, Algebra, Geometry, Ancient and Modern Languages. Impressive, right? Also in the 18th century the opening for female scholars became clear thanks to the new ideas of Enlightenment. (In Germany Enlightenment movement had also some ideas. For men. White men. Of the Bourgeoisie…)
When I looked into the course unit catalog I was amazed even more. As student of Adult Education in Berlin I am used to an empirical approach and knowledge on some meta-level I can’t even describe, which can be interesting but I always would love to talk more about a practical approach. And now I could be able to talk about intercultural or inclusive pedagogic? I was thrilled! And as I should find out, rightly so. I had to redo my schedule a little bit but in the end I have taken Pedagogia Interculturale, Teatro Sociale Part 1, Gender Studies and Museums&Scientific Exhibitions and did my exams in two of them. In a following posts I’ll tell you more about the courses (and even I was overwhelmed a bit in between, I loved them all) and what I learnt there and how changing to online lessons in the middle of the semester went, right now I like to focus on the university as an institution in general.
After I found out about the history of this institution and that I would actually be able to learn what I miss in my own university I couldn’t wait to walk through the ancient halls of that place. And the few weeks when I was able to, I loved every inch of it. The main building is at the Via Zamboni at the Piazza G. Verdi. I didn’t realized it for a while, because normally the piazza is crowded most of the day and especially on the night, but you hear classical music from the theatre on that place. The streetart in that area is a wild contrast to that but somehow it merges all together there quite perfectly. Since in Berlin the universities are in more expensive areas and my friends lived all over the city, I often missed that kind of student experience I had in Bologna, where you have campus, affordable cafés and bars nearby so you have more opportunities to meet your friends right after classes.
My excitement even grow when I saw that in the course unit catalog all the courses were marked to which Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nation it belongs. When I finally arrived and during my stay my affection grow even more. Maybe you remember my post about Patrick Zaky the Egyptian activist, who is a Master scholar at the UNIBO who got arrested when he went home for vacation. Not only that the university arranged a march of solidarity for him, no, they even informed about his persistent stay at the Egyptian prison, tried to get him the possibility to continue his studies and asked their students to write him E-Mails of support during the whole COVID-19 mess. From all I manage to find out, he is still in preventive detention and the city of Bologna wants to discuss his honorably citizenship.
The general way of dealing with the crises was just as touching as that shown solidarity. For example, from February the 23rd to March the 31st I got 30 messages from the university. Most were updates about the situation, but also I got some with motivational speeches, leads to online-offers of the university like doing sports together and so on. I am always a fan of transparency and constant updates as a sign of support, so even I didn’t needed all that information I felt connected and that there are people working hard to make sure I can continue my studies. Also I was happy for the regular students because the tuition fee for the last semester was post-phoned several times since the university board understood that most of the students are in financial troubles with that situation. (I just payed tuition fee for my home university and read the annotation about the default surcharge when paying late. I know education is much cheaper in Germany than in other countries and I was able to pay it from my savings, but I would wish they would at least think about giving some kind of support instead of reminding us that we get expelled when we don’t pay in time and taking nearly 20€ extra when paying late. They don’t even know how next semester will look like, but the bill went out as usual.)
Which is maybe also interesting for you, to put together a timetable was not as easy as in Germany because of two factors. First you have more lessons each week (in Germany I usually have every week one or sometimes two lessons of the same subject, in Bologna three was the standard) and they are more flexible with the time slots. In Germany the timeslots are like 8-10, 10-12, 12-14 etc., in Bologna everything was possible. Start at 11, 12 or 12:30 I saw all versions of that. Some professors start at the time like it was written in the timetable, some 15 minutes later. So especially with lectures coming and going all the time was kind of normal. You also have the possibility to attend “non-attending” classes, where you don’t have to be there but your exam will be a little bit different also. With the exams I was also a little bit more flexible because they gave me three times where I could choose from. So I could plan my exams in a comfortable manner for me and around the rest of my workload.
To sum it up, at the Università di Bologna I felt a huge amount of solidarity, sustainability and support for their students. Also I am quite impressed about the history of that building and love how they support females in the past. Some things confused me in terms of structure and probably if I would have stayed there a longer period, I would find something I don’t like. But since solidarity, sustainability, support and feminism are important to me and I often were surprised of that amount I am sure it is legit to say, it was the best university I visit in my students life. Next week I’ll tell you more about my courses, the professors and the other students.
Travel, learn, share, repeat... 