Università degli Studi di Padova
speciality: Politics

I enjoyed my time studying Political Science, International Relations, and Human Rights in Padova. Most professors were competent and exams were not too tough but still engaging. The curriculum offers courses in different areas which is great if you are interested in many different things. However, in the end, it felt still a bit too general. The classes were very big (around 150 people for every lecture), and mostly consisted of lectures, so don’t expect debates or interaction.
I especially liked the possibility of attending course classes (French, Spanish or German), and many Erasmus connections. The university of Padova is part of the Arqus alliance so you have even more possibilities to go abroad.

Padova is a great univerity city in my opinion, there’s a lot of students, activities and things to do and explore in the city, like cafés, museums, historic sites. The downside is that the housing market is getting saturated, so finding a cheap apartment can be tough. Student dorms are not really a thing in Italy, as there are very few spaces available, most people choose to share the flat with other students, but sometimes you will have to share even the room (camera doppia).

Overall my experience at the University of Padua was good. I recommend the University for its huge network and mobilities programs for studies and internships as well as the various courses it offers even for international students.

I could rant about the University and, in particular, the politics department all day long. I’ll keep it brief, though. For context, I am an international master’s student studying European and Global Studies which is a course run by the Department of Political Science. This department is massively dysfunctional and could not organise a p***-up in a brewery. While this may sound like something that, as a master’s student living abroad in Italy, could be ignored for the benefits of living in Italy generally, it is completely soul-sucking. No one on my course has enjoyed themselves.

Some examples of the poor quality of education: exams are often taken orally in front of the rest of the course, meaning that answers can often be gleaned from classmates beforehand; marks are 90% of the time given arbitrarily with no feedback. Same quality of answer from two students will often not have same result – either bc favouritism or something more nefarious. I have also never had a well-organised exam i.e. on time or with enough space in the room for the students. late exams have ranged from 30 mins to about 3 hours. Maybe this is normal for Italy or specific to the department, I don’t know, but it is such a waste of time and shows how little they value the student.

The quality of the teaching is also disappointing. It is generally slow and read from the slide. Moreover, I am on an English-language course and I can safely say only about 50% of the professors have had an above B2 level of English. One of them had to read from a prepared script to even teach the lesson. Native speakers such as myself are at a massive advantage too – it often feels during the oral exams that merely speaking at the teachers fluently and quickly is enough to score high grades. I’m not joking, I scored a 30 cum laurea by just speaking quickly.

Finally, the way they ask for theses to be written here makes 0 sense. They ask for a 50,000-word piece, which is a stupidly massive article. The professors are at least open about the fact they will never read these, which is incredibly demoralising and makes your work feel worthless. This is a common theme with much smaller 3,000-word essays too. How on Earth can they expect to mark these if they will never read them? From a small 10-minute presentation on graduation day, apparently. Again, their grading feels so baseless and arbitrary .

There’s loads of other examples I could use too. They need to sort themselves out.

After my sister applied to the master’s program at Padova University, I was also so excited to apply next year for the European and Global Studies master’s program. It was stressful application season because the number of rejected letters started to increase recently. So many students applied to Padova University because they have so huge scholarship opportunities. The faculty location is perfect (in the centre) and so historical. The professors and guests who join conferences from different universities add to your big world wave and you have the best chance to know all people worldwide. When I came all rents and bills started to increase and the scholarship is not enough for life. You need to work but Italian is so important in Padova because the average of the English speakers is low.

Half of my University experience was unfortunately in times of lockdown and Coronavirus: the distance with my colleagues and professors made the experience less enthralling as it could have been. The courses and programme were smartly divided though, and my studies were almost always consciously active and related to contemporaneity, giving me a good lens to look at the present World with knowledge.

The University, in general, is well organised, the places are all renewed, as they are old buildings and the classes are all very interesting. The teachers really care about their students and try their best to entertain them and make classes fun and stimulating.

During my experience at the University of Padua, I had a chance to compare with other students and professors about many different topics
When I decided to choose this university I wanted to find a context where I can learn a different method of study and understanding new political and geopolitical contexts in the European Union and the Middle East. It was the right choice for me. I think that Padova can be a good context for the growth for each student because the professors are political, economic and juridical professionals.

Good university for teaching science and humanities.
During the training course it gives many young people the opportunity to study abroad and have new experiences.
At the end of the course many meetings are made available with companies to do internships or enter the world of work directly.

I spent two wonderful years at the University of Padua. I graduated in international politics and diplomacy. The course is excellent, the teachers really prepared. I recommend my course to future students.

I think this university is good, in general, a little too retrograde in teaching methods, but overall good. I was very pleased with the opportunity I was given to go abroad, how tutors helped me and the bureaucratic timing.