Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

For my exchange I attend Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan Italy. Cattolica is a city campus like UTS and this is something that really drew me to this university due to the central location for touring the city of Milan. On of the main things I love about Cattolica is that the main university building is inside an old monastery. Thus, the facilities are rather different to the modern campus of UTS. My classes are all in the international building which is around a 5-minute walk from the main building. The classrooms in the international building are a lot smaller than what I am used to at UTS with only enough seating for about 40 students in each room. Something that I have struggled with is the facilities in Cattolica lack of shared work and chill spaces around the university. During my breaks, I have to go to a nearby café to study as there aren’t any nice work spaces around the international campus. 

Additionally, the teaching style at Cattolica is rather different than what I’ve experienced at UTS. One of the main differences is that my classes are twice a week and they do not consist of both lectures and tutorials but rather a mix of both. These two hour classes include both team work, interactive work as well as lecture like material. This is something I found interesting about the structure of my new classes and is one of the key differences between the teaching style at Cattolica and UTS. Another key difference is that Cattolica takes a less practical work ready approach, where as my classes at UTS are very focused on preparing students for work in their future career, while Cattolica takes a more traditional approach to teaching. Additionally, something I have found interesting is that at Cattolica they do not allow students to use laptops to take notes. At first I struggled to write my notes fast enough and keep them organised however, after a few weeks I got used to it again. 

For my course work here at Cattolica, I study mostly communications classes which is the same as at UTS. However, although my classes in Milan are focused on communications, the classes here relate less to public relations like my classes at UTS and are more focused on sustainable and green communication, purpose brand communication and communicating via television and music. At UTS I study classes that are primarily focused on my major of Public Relations. I enjoy these differences as it gives me a varied approach to understanding communications. Another difference with what I study in Milan is language. At Cattolica I am studying Italian language, something I have never studied before. I have always wanted to study a language so studying Italian while being in Italy is truly an amazing experience and helping me navigate life here! 

Arabella Walton
Bachelor of Communications 
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Italy

For more information about the UTS Global Exchange program please visit: www.global-exchange.uts.edu.au