Studying in Bologna

Last week I wrote about the University in Bologna in general, what impressed me most, what confused me and what I liked about studying there. This time I will share some more details about my courses in that amazing university.

Before I went to Bologna I needed some signature of my professor for the courses we both thought would be a good fit and at that point I decided for three courses, all in Italian. Yeah, I know, I only had Italian Level A2 so that wasn’t my most clever idea, but I was convinced I could make it. And maybe I would have without COVID-19. After the first week (where I only had one course) I realized that I overwhelmed myself and that I need to change one course for an english one. For the ECTP I could put into my records in Germany there wouldn’t be much change, so this wasn’t an hard decision. When after three weeks university had to cancel presence lessons due of COVID-19 and changed to online classes, I decided to add another english courses because without having direct contact to other students it was hard to follow (especially at one class the teacher only spoke without any form of presentation). Till then I actually got the main ideas of my Italian-spoken courses and my language skills improved a lot. But since I want to finish my Master degree soon I needed at least some credit points and in lockdown my mind was in crisis-mode, so better play safe right? I finished the lectures of the two Italian courses I already started, but I didn’t take part at their exams. One of the courses would have had two parts, but in between them I had to move back and organize stuff et cetera so I decided to ditch the second part.

All my courses were very interesting. I attend Pedagogia Interculturale, Teatro Sociale part 1, Gender Studies and Museums&Scientific Exhibition. Even I didn’t understand all from the first two I could already see some differences in the approaches and especially from Pedagogia Interculturale I learned a lot. We started with definitions of course but then we talked about reasons behind migration and the professoressa was very good with handling explaining stereotypes without reproducing and it was very interesting to get more background informations about racism. Even I thought I know already a lot about that, I had often some “ooooooh” moments. In Teatro Sociale we talked mostly about a company with non-professional disabled actors. I say non-professional because they didn’t attend some classical actor school but they work on such a high quality, that they aren’t amateurs either. It was pretty amazing and to drop-out of that class was not easy for me, in the second part we wanted to talk about theatre in prison. But it was too hard for me too follow, especially after the online-classes started. In the weeks before that I already started to talk with other students after class so I could catch up on things I didn’t understand but after online classes everyone was just signing off quickly. So I was really happy when my professor in Gender Studies recommend us to form a group without him. Unfortunately we ended up to make this on Teams too, which wasn’t as comfortable as with a messenger, but with the people I did group work I connected on a messenger I have on my phone and this was fine. Our professor also invited us once to stay longer after class and that everyone (who feels good with it) put the camera on to introduce themself. This helped him and us to feel more connected to each other and to put faces to the names. Somehow we interacted much more in the lessons than in the others. Especially the option to put emojis on someones comment helped us to show approval. In Museums&Scientific Exhibition I learnt not only a lot about the history of museums as I thought but many interesting little background stories about objects and collections in museums.

For Gender Studies I ended up writing a paper. Since I was totally free in my choice and probably because I didn’t had anything else to do I managed to write it in two weeks. Normally I need much more time. And I got a very good grade for it! In Museums I made an oral exam and this went also very well. Doing the oral exam online was a good experience but I think it was because my professor make it quite nice. I had to present an object or exhibition and tell something about it and then we talked a bit about some of the topics we had in class. Before the exam he was also like “I don’t care if you have prepared some notes on the side, you don’t have to show me more of your private space than needed.” I think it isn’t everywhere like that. But with that exam my time at the Università di Bologna ends. I still have some paperwork to do, but the exchange experience is over.

I am still sad, that I couldn’t stay longer and think about returning. Probably not for university but maybe I can find a job opportunity. This week I had an appointment with a language school, because I want to do a certificated course for teaching german, which would raise the possibilities to go back. Or somewhere else. There is also paperwork included for covering the finances but so far it looks like I’ll be able to do the course. Wish me luck!