Hello everyone! ☺
I am writing to you from sunny, a bit windy, but beautiful Trieste! The University of Trieste in Italy is one of the many options that KLU students can choose from when deciding on their semester abroad. It was my first choice because … well, it’s Italy! I never visited the country before, but I have always been interested in its culture and history. I have been living here for two months, and I have gathered a large list of impressions that I can’t wait to share. |
| Me taking a sightseeing trip in the city of Florence |
The University of Trieste
Let me start with some general information.The University of Trieste (UNITS) is a medium-sized university with 10 departments and around 20,000 students. It is ranked among the top universities in Italy for quality of teaching and excellence of research. There are two programs in the Economics department that are entirely taught in English – one is more finance related, and the other is mainly concerned with management. I am a student on the intensive track of the bachelor’s program, so according to the curriculum I have to take four courses. The ones I chose here are Financial Mathematics, Theory and Techniques for Quality Control, Organizational Behavior and Design, and Management of Innovation.
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| The Main building |
Time for impressions:
First of all, when you are a student at a university with around 150 people on campus, any other bigger university seems huge and overcrowded. I was lucky that there were three students from UNITS in Erasmus at KLU, so I knew someone here. If it wasn’t for them, I would constantly have gotten lost the first weeks.
Finding the building was relatively easy – it is not far from the city center and it is easily accessible by bus. I would only recommend walking for the real hiking enthusiasts, since the campus is situated on a hill. The classes are mostly held in the Economics department building, which is not that big. The real challenge is to find your class somewhere else. For me, that was a completely new experience because I am used to having everything in one building – library, study rooms, lectures, cafeteria, etc. Here, they are all located in different places, so it can be a bit hectic at first.
Of course UNITS organized a welcome day for all the new exchange students – but for the business admin students, this day was one week after our lectures started. That wasn’t really convenient regarding enrollment, access to the university network or WiFi, and all the formalities related to joining a new university. It was quite a challenge to get any information on how and where to enroll but eventually, I managed to do it! During our welcome session we were introduced to ESN Trieste (the Erasmus network here) and all their activities. Every Erasmus student gets the ESN card for a small fee and can benefit from many discounts. And the ESN people are the ones who organize events like trips and parties.
Regarding the lectures – I expected to have the classical type of lectures where students just listen and take notes. Of course, some of the classes are exactly like this, but I was pleasantly surprised that some of the courses rely on teamwork and case studies. Another concern, which I realized came from a stereotype of mine, was how the lecturers’ English would be. Well, you can definitely tell that they are from Italy, but I had no problem following them. And I have already taken two exams and I cannot say that the experience was much different than at KLU. Perhaps the only difference is that you have to enroll online and that the exams are not anonymous.
I decided that it would make more sense to write this blog in two parts, so here I am mainly telling you about the academic experience, and next I will talk about life as an Erasmus student in Trieste.
See you soon with more information on what it is like to have your exchange semester in Italy! ☺
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| A campus view |
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| The economic faculty |
