University of Turin

The university of Turin is a really good one, one of the best of Italy. I did my erasmus there and it was a really amazing experience. The courses are really good quality and the professors supporting erasmus student. If you want to experience a truly and fully student life, Turin is the place to be as there is thousands of students all over the city.

The University of Turin is not at the top of the Italian universities, but I think it is one of the best. The organization is not so good sometimes and the students have to manage several things by themselves and this could be a problem especially for foreign students. There is a Buddy Program but it is quite small and I think great help and support can be found in the other students. Italians are very friendly and it is a good point if an exchange student needs help or wants to improve their language skills. In my course of study (foreign languages) there was quite a high level of knowledge of both professors and students. Professors are often involved in festivals, seminars or talks, and they try to involve the students as well. People are generally internationally friendly, since Turin has a long history as a city of tourism. This means that the language barrier will not be such an obstacle and you will always find someone who can speak at least a bit of English or French.

UNITO is a university located in Italy in the region of Piedmont. I wouldn’t say that is the best in Italy, but I am sure it will be very soon. It is, in fact, improving its study programme, expanding the international exchanges through the Erasmus and Overseas programmes. It also involves students in various activities, such as seminars concerning many different topics, and usually contemporary ones. In Turin I study foreign languages, it is not one of the best faculties of the University and it has so much to improve, starting from the course programme. The teachers are well prepared, but I believe that the programme doesn’t value their preparation. I think that are some useless courses that should be dropped and some other definitely to be improved. For example, students should have the possibility to choose more optional courses and not only a few of them. I study Japanese and English and although Japanese is a very tough language I think that many exchange programmes helped me a lot to improve it. But the exam modality should be changed, we don’t have the preparation for an exam this hard. The organisational system works pretty well, some problems have occurred but they were easily resolved. In general I think I would recommend it. It has many pros.

It is my university after all, so I am affectionate to it but I have to say it’s very much disorganized. Professors and facilities often left me disappointed, but there are new buildings since this year and some professors are also nice! The course was pretty much what I expected, I just would have enjoyed a better quality throughout the whole university. It’s in the heart of Turin, so it’s a very nice place to be and move around. I would recommend it to a friend if they have no better option.

I attended the University of Turin, faculty of law and I can say that the training offer is very valid. However, disorganization permeates the entire university system, and this also affects education: professors who do not come to law and do not warn, exams that skip heavy and cumbersome bureaucracy.

I attended the master course in International Affairs (China and Global Studies profile) at the University of Turin from September 2017 to March 2020. The faculty is located in the beautiful Campus Luigi Einaudi near the Dora River, 15 minutes by feet from the city center. The master course in International Relations and area studies provides students with a great set of skills related to international affairs, economics and languages, dividing the course in 4 different paths: - China and Global Studies; - European Studies; - Middle East and North Africa; - Human Rights and International Cooperation. The lessons are coupled with extra-curricular activities, summer schools and seminars in order to help students to improve both soft and hard skills. Moreover, the China and Global Studies profile is equipped with a mobility programme granting a selected number of students the opportunity to attend a full academic year abroad in a Chinese University. On the other side, drawbacks might be related to physical spaces: a lack of accommodation facilities for incoming foreign students and the poor number of rooms to speak loudly. Overall, I would definitely recommend the master course to a friend interested in an academic career with a truly international focus.

Despite offering a wide range of subjects, when taking the exams; s most are oral, teachers are not able to make a list to organize the fixed order and we have to organize the students. In addition, it is not known the number of people who will be evaluated per day and therefore you must be aware if you have to examine yourself at the last moment or otherwise, be waiting all day at the Faculty and finally it is not your turn and you have to do it the next day. On the other hand, it does not seem to me the best way to evaluate since it does not have the same advantage a person who examines the first day to a person who examines 10 days later (depends on the number of students who present themselves) since it also They will know the type of questions they ask, unlike the first students examined.

The main problems regarding the faculty of Medicine and Surgery in the University of Turin are linked to the way the classes and internship are delivered, to the facilities offered to the students and the school's identity. So, regarding the first point, it must be highlighted that lectures are still delivered to groups of 200 people from mostly old professors/clinicians whose priority is not educating or educating well but rather their clinical activities. They do not put any effort in being innovative and finding new, more involving and effective ways to teach their topic so everything is extremely theoretical with very little connection to the real hospital life. There are no workshops, no seminars, no little group activities; clinical cases are done very rarely before the last semester at the 6th year. Secondly we should also mention the way exams are organizes: most of the time are oral examinations that follow or not a written exams. Most of the time professors summon all the students in the morning and have them wait the whole day (or sometimes more days) while their fellow students are sitting the exam. Having a lot of oral exams in my opinion doesn't allow the scores to be objective (one is usually asked 1 or 2 questions of a exam program of 1000 pages books) and the professor's judgment might differ from a day to another or to the morning to the evening due to physiological tiredness. Also even the exams are very theoretical and not linked to the future daily clinical life. Passing to the internships, it must be said that most of the time the doctors are not aware that they should mentor students, big groups of students are assigned to the same doctor and little time is given to teaching (most of the time you just follow the doctor and listen); no practical activities are taught and the students-patient relationship is very rare. No responsibilities is given to students except during the thesis period when the students if they want can attend the ward daily (most of the time instead of attending classes or after classes at night). About the facilities offered to medical students must be highlighted that there are not medical students area, there is no a medical faculty building: all students take classes in different buildings of the city (this is very uncomfortable for erasmus students that take lectures of different years and have to run from a place to another in no time) and there are not common areas except one little studying area in one building of the hospital. This means also: no common spaces for studying, no one medical library with books usable for studying (most of the books present in the small medical libraries that are spread around the hospitals are useless plus the time these libraries are opened is very limited), no canteens, no lockers, no common areas to get to know each other, to build a network, to organize events, to do students' meetings and conferences. Better not to mention the students' administrative offices, also spread around the city and with very limited time during when they are open which mostly are the same of classes/internship time. Last but not least we should mention that the whole faculty (deans, educational committees) do not seem committed in evolving, improving, listening to the students. Things are always done the same, changes are very hard to make, no plans are made for the future in term of social accountability, teaching of new topics (such global health) and very little consideration is given to students opinion (also those who do erasmus abroad and see how medicine can be taught and lived differently). Overall I would not recommend to study in Turin, but I must say that in most of Italian universities it works the same.