Posted by alexb on Monday, May 29, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

Today I spoke to a Native of Cefalu about his experience at a private university in Palermo, a nearby city. His name is Vincenzo Di Franco and he is currently finishing his last semester of college, majoring as a translator and planning on pursuing it as a job.

I asked him many questions that drew comparisons between the differing school systems and this is what I concluded: college in Sicily is a much less life engulfing event as college in America. In America, most students live on a campus of their peers and spend 4 years receiving a well rounded education. In Sicily and Italy, people seem to study a very specific–almost vocational–subject, live wherever they want, as college campuses don’t exist, and are less competitive with grading.

Vincenzo said that all of his secondary education was oral exams and even in his university the majority of his evaluations are oral interviews with his professors. I found this extremely interesting because I almost never did oral exams in high school and I could never imagine doing oral exams in college because the professor wouldn’t have time to conduct interviews of all their students.

Another difference I noticed was the perception of private universities versus public institutions in Sicily. When talking to Vincenzo, he said that most people view private universities as easier than public ones because there is smaller classes, therefore less competition and pay more so they are less likely to get bad grades. While this is the common perception, he claims this is not the case and it is just as difficult as public schools here. This differs from the American private vs. public in many ways. The most notable is that most private universities are perceived as more difficult, competitive, and exclusive than public schools in America.

While there are many differences that I discovered, there was one surprising similarity that I found. Vincenzo said that it was very popular to study abroad for a semester or two.

Through this 30 minute conversation, I have learned so much about how Sicilians view undergraduate education and how it functions within its society. They seem to care significantly less about having a well rounded or liberal arts education and are forced to make more of an obligation to one profession earlier on in life than American kids do. Vincenzo thought that this was a bad thing because then students might go down a trajectory without realizing that they want to switch before its too late. While I do see that as a major problem, I also believe that reaching a happy medium, where students can pursue any passion of theirs but are not forced to reach any specific requirements **cough cough AXLE cough cough** would be much more beneficial to having a well rounded education while also being applicable.

 

Interview Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwuSpNVNuBrhSnAtYmlfTzRja3M/view?usp=sharing