What was your favorite course this year?
Wilcox’s course with the long name
State and Society in Contemporary Brazil
america and the world
Development Cooperation
Intellectuals and Politics
Public Sector Economics
European Foreign Policy
Peace and War
war and peace
Asian Economic Developmetn
Harper’d American Foreign Policy DEBATE class
Science, Technology and International Affairs
Peace and War
econometrics
Public Sector Economics
Central Asian Economies
Middle East
Development cooperation
American foreign policy debate class
Intellectuals and Politics
thucydides, and any other class with prof. cesa
Crisis in Context
Theories of IR
Europe in the Cold War with Gilbert
Renewable Energy
West European Political Economy
Comparative National Systems
public sector economics
public sector econ
Political Islam
Intellectuals and Politics
War and Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
Pasquino: Political Systems of the Developing World
Evolution of the International System
Evolution of the International System
Crises in Context
Monetary
Peace & War
What was your favorite restaurant in Bologna?
Taverna Mascarella
da Fabio
osteria dell’orsa
Trattoria Gigina
Bella Napoli
Al Sangiovese
Pizzaria da Toto
McDonalds
mariposa
Victoria
Spacca Napoli— learn to love it
Bella Arti
Drogheria della rosa
drogheria della rossa
Trattoria di Facchini
Drogheria della Rosa
Brace
Trattoria Trebbi
Bottega de Facchini
Camera a Sud
drogheria delle rose – expensive but delicious food
La Faticca
Il Portico
Facchini
Drogheria della Rosa
Trattoria Da Facchini
Osteria al 15
quindici (by solferino)
Osteria Broccaindosso
Da Fabio Ristorante
Spaca Napoli
Al Sangiovese
Da Fabio
Broccaindosso
Osteria al 15
The bar next to the Mailboxes etc on Via Massarenti. It has free Wifi (one of very few in Bologna), excellent food, and a great staff
Drogheria della Rossa
What was your favorite place to visit outside of Bologna?
Sienna
Prague
verona
Sicily
Rome
Sicily
Livorno
agritourismo
Florence
Florence
outlet near Firenze
Lake Como
venice
Granada, Spain
Rome
Rome
Lake Garda & Lake Como
Florence, Rome
Venice
n.a.
Cinque Terre (also Sardinia)
Venice and Florence
Israel…
Rome
Barcelona
Rome
budapest
Trento
Milan
Rome
Montalcino, Tuscany
Sicily
Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre
San Sebastian, Spain
Erice, Silicy
What other advice do you have for next year’s class?
If you’re not drinking negroni’s, you’re not doing it right
Enjoy it!
get a bike, but watch out for bike-thieves
Enjoy the year and all Bologna, Italy and Europe (via Ryanair) has to offer!
Study harder than I did and party less.
“TRAVEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
travel travel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you will never be able to go to florence in 40 minutes for 10 dollars
ever agaiN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Life in Italy can be really relaxed… sometimes (esp. the second semester) just don’t get too carried away.
Have fun from day one until the day you leave
don’t expect any quantitative courses because you will be greatly disappointed. p.s. a spritz is a really lame version of a negroni.
Enjoy!
If you don’t speak Italian get to Bologna before the end of preterm or else you will have trouble finding housing! Not only does Salvatore run out of places but the entire city is full of students so all academic year housing gets scarce.
Learn Italian and hang out with locals
“try to do preterm, reasons:
1.) by october, pretermers know each other. it takes 1-2 months to get the cliques to open up
2.) get micro or macro out of the way
3.) housing: by october almost all of salvatores appartements are taken, thus, it is time consuming to find outside-sais rooms
Cremeria Mascarella (30, Via Mascarella) makes a 1 euro discount on its ice creams for SAIS students.
Chose your classes based on professors and subject matter, and not by which requirements you need to fulfill.
“Socialize. You will have enough time to network and be serious when in DC.
Get food, drinks etc. with your classmates and professors (!) as often as you can. Audit interesting classes. Join many clubs, but not too many – rather commit to something and stick with it. Learn a minimum of Italian. Attend talks, special lectures… broaden your horizon.
Other good classes: Evolution of the International System, Public Sector Economy
Get familiar with the opening times of important things such as supermarkets, bars, restaurants…
“travel early on! don’t leave it all to the last few weeks of school!
attend as many classes as possible in the first two weeks – you can’t judge a course by the syllabus and you may end up taking a great course that you wouldn’t have been interested in otherwise. “
live it up guys. and look out for those cheap ryan air tickets!
Save money, just use the course books on reserve.
Take as much as you can home at Christmas to lighten your bags in June.
Live close to school, or at least inside the ring road. Mazzini can be dangerous.
Cremeria Castiglione and Gelato Gianni have the best gelato.
There’s a discount for buying some train tickets online in advance.
Cheap flights from Bologna to Morocco and Greece.
Don’t miss the Austrian Ball.
Bring your checkbook (from U.S.), in order to take advantage of no-fee check-cashing service offered at the bank; saves you ATM fees.
Get here early in pre-term. The good houses go quickly.
It’s nice to have a bicycle, but it will probably get stolen, so don’t spend too much.
The opera festival in Verona ends at the end of August. Try to catch one during pre-term. Tickets are cheap.
Sagra del Pesce, Camogli, late May.
Few visitors know that there is a big park–Parco Villa Spada–next to the portico to the Santuario di San Luca with hills, meadows, and city views. The entrance is on Via Saragozza on your left about two blocks before via del Meloncello (where the portici to San Luca start). It looks like you’re entering a museum grounds, and you are. Walk up through the trees and you emerge in the meadows about the city. Walking up the hill is much more pleasant than the dark, crowded portico, and you can see San Luca from the top of the hill. There are never any tourists. This is the best picnic spot in Bologna.
Learn Italian!
Focus on balance — you could easily party and travel every day, and you could just as easily hole yourself up studying and miss out on seeing amazing things and having amazing experiences with your classmates. Balancing those two is the key to making your year both special and memorable but also productive.
Learn Italian!
Enjoy it! The time will fly by.
“Don’t eat at Giulio’s. The food and drink are both overpriced, and the food is terrible.
Start networking the second you arrive in Bologna. You will have to work hard to overcome the hurdle of not being able to interview in person, and you will need every advantage you can get.
If your funds are or will be in a non-Euro currency, just think about the factor of shifts in exchange rates. You’re going to have to forecast future exchange rates during periods when you will gain access to funds and budget accordingly. Translated into plain English, if you expect your currency to depreciate (looking at you, Americans), anticipate prices in your home currency to rise.
Read the Bologna Student Handbook, cover to cover, immediately, even the parts you don’t think you’ll need.
As soon as possible, get the cell phone number of the Center doctor, Dr. Stephen Williams, and program it into your phones. And take notes during his presentation at the beginning of the year.
Don’t take Econometrics and Corporate Finance simultaneously for credit.
Corporate Finance will take up a similar amount of time as DC, about 8 hours per week outside of class. Plan accordingly
Don’t go to L’Infidele; it’s overpriced.
Don’t go to Soda Pops; it’s overpriced and a club targeted to University of Bologna first years. It can be immensely entertaining, though not in the way intended.
If you can, get a phone with Internet capabilities; almost no places in Bologna have free Wifi and internet cafes in the Southeast of the city are clustered around Porta San Vitale.
Wear a helmet if you bike; drivers are aggressive.
Carry change with you; oddly enough, shops, delivery people, and taxi drivers frequently have limited change and will get upset if they have to break a fifty for you.
Frederico, the bank clerk at the Banco Populare di Milano branch at Porta San Vitale A) speaks English and B) is pretty rude. Don’t take it too personally.
If you can, get an Italian bank account at Banco Populare di Milano. You can get free student accounts.
When you compare fare prices between Ryanair and European legacy carriers (Air France, British Airways, etc.), remember to factor in time of day and cost of luggage and then ask yourself if you’re willing to make the tradeoffs in terms of convenience, luggage, and time-of-day. The legacy carriers have gotten aggressive in pricing recently.
Anticipate getting your permesso around Christmas break, possibly later. If you’re an American, every time you enter Italy, you are allowed to stay 90 days without a visa, as per the visa waiver program.
Pay attention to student evals. No matter how good a course sounds, if the instructor isn’t good, don’t take the class. Conversely, if the instructor is good, take the class if you the slightest interest in the subject.
For Americans and Brits, there isn’t the same culture of valuing personal space in Italy as in the US and the UK. Many is the time when I was in line in a store when I would turn around quickly for some reason only to find I had stepped on someone’s feet because they had decided to get really close behind me.
Paying for buses in Bologna is semi-optional; I’ve never seen anyone or anything actually take tickets on buses.
If you want to go on the International Staff Ride, meet with Professor Cohen, Professor Keaney, and Professor McLaughlin in DC if you can, especially if you’re going to do pre-term. They make ISR staffing decisions and the only two Bolognesi who were picked this year had met with them. If you’re Strat, and especially if you’re an American who’s Strat, and ESPECIALLY if you’re an American Strat person who’s going into national security fields, go on the International Staff Ride; you will make connections you will scarcely think possible. Even if you’re none of those things, apply to go; it’s a lot of fun, you learn a lot, and the food and wine are really good.
Intensive Italian is a semester or more of Italian crammed into a month. Take it if A) you’ve completed both the macro and micro requirements and B) You want to seriously learn Italian. It’s exhausting and not easy. If you just want to know enough to get around, don’t take it; taking it would be overkill.
Conversely, if you want to learn Italian, do all that you can to take intensive Italian. If it means doing macro and micro in DC, do it.
If you’re going to DC pre-term, meet as many people as possible, but especially meet DC first years and the main faculty in your department, even if faculty will come out to do visits. Maintaining contact can only lead to good things.
THANKS TO ALL WHO SENT IN THEIR COMMENTS!
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