This is the second part of my story as an international student in Italy. If you missed the first part you can read it at this link https://www.uninformazione.it/cultura/my-journey-as-an-international-student-in-italy-pt-1/.
The next step once I arrived in Rome was to find a job, which to be honest is highly bureaucratic and therefore the days were very challenging for me, although University guided me very well in all the procedures, but the language barrier was the thing that troubled me a lot. I knew very few phrases in italian and i was just communicating with locals with stuff like “ciao, grazie and tu parla inglese?” Thanks to Google translate I finished all my documentations.
As a traveller, i have learnt that to enjoy the real essence of the city you have to communicate with the locals, because you can learn more about the culture of any place in the streets not just along the tourist attractions with tour guides.
That day I decided to learn Italian to connect with the roots of the city. Our university offered free italian courses and it really helped me a lot and because now I am able to at least start a conversation. For six months, I’ve studied italian in those lectures plus I watched some brilliant italian movies with english subtitles like “La Vita è Bella” and “Perfetti Sconosciuti”. I used to speak with my italian friends and they really appreciated my efforts to learn the language.
Everything was going good and I almost settled in the new environment but then it came march 2020. And not it was not just a small pause but a big one of more than six months. I had to come back to India because of the Coronavirus outbreak. The whole world witnessed the trauma and we are still facing it. Especially the initial days were very difficult; as an international student I had millions of negative thoughts in my mind. Like “if i would ever be able to return to italy?” or “what will happen to my university now?”.
To be honest, I never enjoyed online lectures, especially the language classes since there was less interaction compared to the offline lectures. I literally forgot everything i learnt in Italy and i started looking for backups in India but fortunately things started to get better and i was back in Italy after six months. But it was like restarting everything and of course a new challenge as it was impossible to interact with people as most of the things were closed. But I’ve tried to think positive and I’ve used that time to improve my skills. I’ve studied hard and started working part time for a food delivery company to raise funds for myself.
And days passed, things started to get better, and I started traveling with my friends from hiking in various hills across Rome, canals of Venice, exotic beaches of Sicily and the most beautiful Napoli. My life changed, I was different and more confident towards my dreams and goals. I started travelling solo and explored many beautiful destinations in Italy.
I was very happy when i heard the news about the reopening of the University and the restarting of offline lessons. Literally, I was in the seventh heaven when i got this information. Things went very well, I finally had a very good schedule, met so many friends after almost an year.
I was elected as one of the student representatives of my programme Engineering Sciences, because of this reason I got to connect with many of my professors and the coordinators. I became a part of Uninformazione, the student association of Tor Vergata University. What i learnt here in Italy is not to judge anyone before talking to them. Now after 3 years, I love the place and more than that I love italians.
I said before in the article that, Italy changed me as a person, and it’s 100% true. As in these three years i have faced defeat more than victory. I have been betrayed and also i have found loyalty in hearts of many people. It just helped me to become stronger and stronger day after day. Today I can say that I am an independent individual who has the courage to deal with all the problems and keep smiling no matter what happens in the end and it’s all because of my decision to choose Italy for my higher education.
This is all from my side. I would love to thank Uninformazione to give me a platform to share my journey with all of you.
