So it's been interesting. The application process is very easy, it's the IMAT for the public schools, and each private school have their own exam. For Humanitas, it' the UKCAT. The way it works is that you have one course, say Anatomy, and for the entire course, it's one exam. It's not like in North America where the first midterm make sup say 30% of your grad, the second one 25%, etc. The teaching I find is excellent, but I have heard that it is much better in private schools so I can't comment about the public ones. The only problem is that for some profs, English is not their native language, so it can be a bit difficult to follow, but most of ours, their English is great. The other thing is how disorganized things are. I mean, it's insane, and it definitely bothers the North Americans and the germans, and other European nations. Class can start late, schedule changes constantly.
Mistakes are constant made about exam scheduling, the course can be really disorganized and topics can be jumped around and so forth. Maybe it's just my school, but I'm not sure. I always heard Italians are terrible at organizing thing so the way the school runs can be very frustrating sometimes. The grading is that a 60% is a pass, which is good. Then you have an oral examination, some subjects don't but most do. It can be quite nerve-racking. So you can do very bad on the written, but do very well on the oral and your grade can jump by over 20%. It can also be the other way around though. Tests usually have 3/4 sections and you need to pass each with a 60% to pass the exam. Some people will get a 55/60 but still fail the exam cause they got say only 5/10 on the biochem part but a 100% on the other sections. And then you have to retake the entire exam, which is REALLY annoying. But you have so many tries, it's crazy. You can take the same exam up to 7 times in most cases. The interesting thing is that you can take the exam for that course in February when it's over, or you can wait even until September to take it, it's very flexible, it's pretty nice actually. In university in Canada if you missed a mid-term/final exam, it was the end of the world no? The summer there is no school, it's just an exam every 15 days of whatever subject you followed. No exam in august, but then again in September until school starts in October.
A big bonus though, is that if you are coming from university and you already have a degree, you can get a ton of credits. I got 35 credits my first year cause I had done the bio/physics/chem/biochem/genetics/molecular bio/histology. It was great, huge load off.
Let's not forget about learning Italian. Once you get to 3rd year and start clinicals, your Italian has to be decent enough to take a history and talk. It's not too bad/hard after living in the country for 2 years, but some people have a lot of trouble with it, especially if they only speak English. If you get to the 3rd year and don't speak any Italian, it's a problem, even if your marks are stellar. You can't ask a 65 year old from Naples how he's feeling in English.
The bureaucracy is insane, that's another story, can write a novel on that. It's ridiculous, and again, so many mistakes, inefficiency, disorganization.
Overall, I'm pretty happy. Feel like I'm getting a very good education and I know it will be hard to go back to Canada, but like I mentioned previously, I love Europe and looking into other countries. Food is great here obviously, lots to do. Italy does have everything if you think about it. Wine, food, history, art, Alps, beaches and it's location is great. Can fly to Paris for the weekend for very cheap. Cost of living is not too high compared to other European cities. I think the big thing is patience, 6 years is a long freakin time. So yea, that's about it. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Always happy to answer!
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