After arriving on Saturday and awkwardly trying to get through the city – and spotting some really impressive sights – I successfully survived the first day of the welcome week.
Monday (Day 1)
In the morning, there was a mandatory registration where we got our university IDs and all the documents we needed, and we were asked to pay for our student insurance. It was a great opportunity to talk to other Erasmus students, and I met a few Psychology students – we had an interesting chat about what it’s like to study Psychology in different European countries.
In the afternoon, everyone attended a welcome talk by the University. After getting a goody-bag (which is the most important part, of course), we were invited in a huge cinema hall with the capacity of approximately 500 seats. The welcome talk was interesting; the vice-rector of the University welcomed us and talked about why Padova is such a great place to study – the first ever woman graduated from the University of Padova, Galileo Galilei used to give lectures in here, and the university has become known to be open to all people regardless of their origins and religion very early on – in 2020, UniPd will have been open to the public for 800 years! We have learnt a lot about all the benefits available for Erasmus students, such as free language courses, parties, trips around Italy and Europe (with the ESN) and events organised by the Municipality of Padova offering cultural exchanges and work opportunities for international student. The meeting finished with a competition called ‘UniPd’s got talent’ where Erasmus students performed on stage – Cally, one of the UoL Psychology students, took part; she sang and played the ukulele, and it was great!
After the talk, the University invited us for a drink (which turned out to be a Spritz) and shortly after that, the first Erasmus name tag party started. I walked over 18 kilometres and had a lot of fun!