{"id":4891,"date":"2017-10-04T15:40:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T05:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/qut-exchange-students\/?p=4891"},"modified":"2017-10-04T15:40:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T05:40:53","slug":"beautiful-italy-milan-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/gone-global\/2017\/10\/04\/beautiful-italy-milan-exchange\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Italy – Milan Exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catlin, B. Bachelor of Design (Fashion)<\/h2>\n

Politecnico di Milano (Italy) (Semester 1, 2017)<\/h2>\n

I completed my exchange semester in Milan at Politecnico di Milano, Bovisa Campus.\u00a0 Politecnico have two campuses in Milan – Bovisa and Leonardo. In comparison to QUT Politecnico is very, very different.<\/p>\n

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Avoiding pigeons at Duomo di Milano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Bovisa campus is considerably smaller with most classes being in one block only, where they have all the design labs; including but not limited to fashion, knitting, prototype, photography, etc.\u00a0 I found the facilities were quite limited compared to QUT in most aspects, but they also had facilities that QUT does not have – such as a knitting lab.<\/p>\n

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The classes and how they are run is also extremely different to QUT, being very heavily centred around group work.\u00a0 This may be due to the limited facilities and surplus of students, however I did not like the dynamic of the classes at all. That being said I also completed some masters subjects which were taught in English and they adopted a much more individual centred approach to the assignments. They are also very strict on attendance, it can sometimes be worth up to 30% of your final grade, which I find unnecessary and not conducive to productivity with some classes being up to 9 hours in length.\u00a0 The general level of academics that was being taught I didn\u2019t find challenged me at all, and was at a much lower standard to that of QUT.\u00a0 In general I didn\u2019t learn anything really from the actual classes and found them to be extremely easy – another reason I found the attendance rule so frustrating.<\/p>\n

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Sunrise from our apartment in Montalbino<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Accomodation wise, I personally stayed in an AirBnB with another girl from my class at QUT; we originally weren\u2019t going to stay for the whole trip, however, we were finding it very difficult being so far away and being able to find reliable and affordable accomodation so we decided to just book our apartment through AirBnB for the entirety of our semester.<\/p>\n

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This worked well for us but after meeting other exchange students from around Europe we realised we probably could\u2019ve gotten a much better place through sites that they used such as Uniplaces, Easystanza or Erasmus. On the flip side of that, I have also heard that the Politecnico dorms are quite nice as well and they\u2019re a great way to make friends and meet new people, just make sure you apply for them in advance as they do fill up!<\/p>\n

Milan in general to live is again very different to Australia.<\/p>\n

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Lunch break at Polimi 1-2pm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cost of living was mostly a bit cheaper; groceries, transport, etc were all cheaper (even considering the terrible exchange rate at the time which was 0.66c to our dollar) but rent in Milan can sometimes be quite pricey.\u00a0 Milan has a great underground Metro system as well as many busses and trams to get you around.\u00a0 The university will give you information about an ATM (Milan\u2019s equivalent of Translink) travel card, which is like a go card however there is a reduced fee for students which is paid monthly and gets you unlimited travel with all of Milan\u2019s transport systems.<\/p>\n

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The culture is also very different and I found the biggest culture shock for me was getting used to how Italians work – mostly very disorganised.<\/p>\n

I also found that there seemed to be (especially at the university) a quite prominent language barrier – not because they couldn’t speak or understand english (because the vast majority of people all across Europe know English to some degree), but because there seemed to be a prejudice towards the exchange students as they did not speak fluent Italian.<\/p>\n

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Picnic with other exchange students in Parco Sempione<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I knew some Italian going over, as did my friend, however a lot of the time we were treated like we didn\u2019t know anything simply because we didn\u2019t speak their language. It was quite a frustrating experience in that sense.<\/p>\n

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The main highlights from my exchange was obviously the ability I had to easily travel around Europe, but also the friends I made from all over the world. At first I was afraid I wouldn\u2019t make any friends, but honestly they were what made it so worthwhile. Looking back there were a LOT of ups and downs but I\u2019m happy that I did it because whilst the university wasn\u2019t what I expected – I gained invaluable life skills, confidence, independence and a new perspective of the world.<\/p>\n

My main tips (also known as – the things I wish someone had told me before I went) are these:<\/p>\n