Posted by Alexander Geyelin on Tuesday, May 30, 2017 in 2017 Blog post.

For my interview, I spoke with Daniella, who works at Scooter-for-Rent and has rented scooters to several of us over the past few weeks. Daniella was born and raised in Cefalu, so we spoke about his education and the schooling system he went through as a child. His early years of education sounded very similar to a typical American track – he attended Cefalu’s public elementary school, and then middle school. He said students attend school during the day, play football and do their homework in the afternoon, and have the summers free. High school (a term he had never heard before) is where the differences became notable. He explained that students in Sicily choose the five-year high school that they will attend based on their career aspirations, subject that they want to study and academic abilities; for example, he listed a math and science-oriented high school, a humanities-focused school, and a vocational training school as some of the options. He said that his high school was essentially “general studies,” and it was one of the less rigorous ones, as he told me that he’s never enjoyed academics very much. This forces students here to choose their area of study and likely career path at a fairly young age – high school here seems to be more geared toward preparing students for their professional lives than it is in America.

After high school, he attended Università degli Studi di Palermo, where he completed his degree in Humanities a few months ago. His explanation of college in Italy was the biggest difference that I noticed between education here and education back home – he told us that students in Sicily choose the University that they will attend based on location first, and specialty second, but only if there are multiple schools with equivalent geographical convenience. Academic prestige is a complete non-factor, and he was shocked when I told him that I attend a college in a different region than my home: “I don’t understand… you said you live in New York… are there no good universities in New York?”. We then spoke about the American college system, and how students will often travel across the country to attend a college because of its reputation or prestige. He said that while some schools may have marginally better academics than others, collegiate competitiveness does not exist here to nearly the degree that it does in the United States. The American culture of focusing for years on gaining entry to a highly-selective college is not mirrored in Italy, and acceptance rates are not analyzed as closely as in the U.S.

Because students attend the university that is closest to their home, he said that dorm life is minimal, and college students live at home if possible (he lived in an apartment in Palermo while he was in school). He described his college experience as less all-encompassing than ours, and compared it after the interview to a second, more focused phase of high school. Universities have no sports teams here, and campus involvement and extracurricular activities are not emphasized – he explained that most students work while they are in school, so college students’ lives simply do not revolve around being in college in the same way that our lives do.

Another significant difference between the two college systems is the cost. He explained that if a student cannot pay for tuition, he/she can go for free – that is sometimes the case back home, but often not possible. And, he said that if the student does pay full tuition, it is usually about 700 and 1,500€ (he was appalled when I told him the cost of some private universities in America).

One of the biggest similarities between American and Italian colleges that he mentioned was the rising necessity of attending. He said that the importance of attending college is rising every year, and at this point it is completely necessary to have a college degree to be eligible for any type of professional employment. High school graduates can find work doing hourly-wage labor or other non-professional fields, but a degree is increasingly important for any type of lucrative job.

Overall, Daniella described a very different education system than I’ve experienced in America. While his early years of schooling somewhat paralleled the American system, the Italian system of high school and college is very different. High school here seems to be more pointed toward the students’ eventual professional lives, while universities do not consume the students’ lives to the degree that they do in the U.S., and there is far less importance placed on which university a student attends. However, as in the United States, it is increasingly necessary for a student to obtain a college degree if he/she wants any real chance at long-term employment.

 

Partial Interview Audio