Palermo, Italia

Hi! I’m Leonardo, I come from Palermo (Italy), and I came here to Valencia to study Civil Engineering at UPV. After two months of staying here I’d like to tell you about some differences between our two universities.

Let’s start from the academic calendar: in Palermo the lessons of the first semester begin at the end of September and end at the beginning of Christmas holidays, and the ones of the second semester begin at the beginning of March and end at the beginning of June.

In every semester we have one or two weeks of pause from the lessons to do all the partial exams, and for the final exams we have four sessions: one in January-February with three chances of passing, one in April with one chance, one in June-July with 3 chances and one in September with one chance. So we have eight possibilities to pass an exam per year, and if we fail, we can do it the next year without paying any extra fee.

Our subjects are usually of 6, 9 and 12 credits and contain a lot of theory and sadly few practical concepts. It was a bit hard for me to deal with all the «prácticas» you do during the week, but I think it’s an extremely useful thing that I’ll miss in Italy.

I am strongly appreciating your university and I will certainly never forget the time I spent here. I will never stop thanking the Erasmus program for all the opportunities it is giving me and for that reason, if you have the chance, I suggest you to make this wonderful experience, you won’t regret it!