This week I attended class for the first time in Italy: I had 6 hours of International Law, which is a third year subject taught in English. I'm getting a nice, easy introduction to studying here, with one subject this week, another one starting next week, and a third the week after. All in all I expect I'll be having about 14 or 15 contact hours per week, which is similar to what I had back home.
Let's be honest: I was pretty much terrified going into my first class, not having the slightest idea of what to expect, and knowing only that the Italian University system is completely different to the Australian one (this was all I had been able to establish prior to the first lecture).
However, my fears were groundless. The lecturer, whose name is Paolo, turned out to be very nice, very good at English, and very astonished at the fact that he had an native English speaker in his class (everyone else was Italian except for one Spanish girl). I obviously have a huge advantage over the other members of the class in that the language doesn't present a problem for me, however all the others are third year law students, who have studied law in depth for two years, so there I notice that I am rather at a disadvantage; I don't have the same "knowledge base" as they do.
If anyone wants to know what it is like to study at a university in Italy, I will tell you. You attend lectures, frantically take notes for two hours while the lecturer talks at the front of the class, buy the textbook, read the textbook, and sit the exam. That's it. There are no tutorials, no homework tasks, no essays, no group assignments, and no oral presentations. The exam is usually worth 100% of your final mark. And it is very often an oral exam, something that nearly gave me heart failure when I first heard it. Fortunately though, at least for International Law, the exam will be a written one.
Hmm what else is new? Oh yeah, there's a HUGE market on Wednesday mornings in the city centre, with literally hundreds of stalls lining the streets. Even for a non-shopper like myself, I must say it was no small task to resist the temptation to purchase a stack of clothes, shoes, handbags and other accessories, all at very reasonable prices.
The weather is still absolutely lovely here, I'm starting to wonder if it will ever actually get cold. I don't think it's rained once since I got here - we need to figure out a way to import this weather to Australia.
Anyway I'll sign off here for now, and wish you all a fantastic weekend!
