The most important one, in my opinion, is the very rich intellectual environment our department provides. There are dynamic and open-minded scholars from all around the world studying and doing research on different topics (going from artificial intelligence to brain disorders, mental health, virtual reality, language acquisition, memory, and cognition, and so much more!). Even being able to meet these people by themselves is a very precious thing, let alone taking classes and collaborating with them.
Secondly here you are not just a passive learner going to classes and trying to pass exams as soon as possible. Students are encouraged to engage and learn through interactions with subjects and professors. This active learning, in my opinion, is crucial, and although at the beginning it may be hard to get used to it, once you do, learning becomes much more enjoyable!
Another thing that comes to mind is that, when you finish your psychology degree here, I believe you will be ready to continue your education with any specialization in psychology and neuroscience. It gives you a strong background in all these fields (and even those that are not directly connected to psychology but are still very relevant). This is precious because you may realize that you are interested in things that you never even thought about before.
And of course, as an international student, I must say that the international environment we have on our course is one of the best ones in Europe. In my class, there were students coming from more than 25 different countries around the world! Of course, we would always speak in English, and sometimes I even forgot that I was studying in Italy.

When I submitted my application, the entry test in psychology was the SAT (scholastic aptitude test), which included questions on reading, writing, language, and math. It was not very difficult to prepare for the exam, but for the last two months, to be honest, I studied quite intensively.
Nowadays, I believe there is a different entry test, but as much as I know from other students who took it, high school-level knowledge on each subject should be enough. My biggest tip would be not to go into many details on subjects (because advanced levels will be covered during your bachelor's anyway). Sometimes we all think that learning as much as possible will always be beneficial for us. We try to memorize, and maybe this causes overload. Instead, obtaining a strong understanding will be more useful. Especially for biology and chemistry, I would suggest searching for videos on the internet visually representing the important processes (for example, DNA transcription and translation steps; it is much easier if you watch some animations about them; there are many out there!).

Psychology is a very broad field, and sometimes students’ expectations do not overlap with the aim of the programme. It may be the case that you are specifically interested in work and organizational psychology or more clinical aspects of psychology. If this is the case, it would be a mistake to expect classes only on these subjects. Our programme has a strong scientific research component as well, and it aims to provide knowledge on all the main aspects of psychology.
To avoid these confusions, I would suggest students try to understand their own interests and whether they match with this program. For example, you may check the syllabus for classes in advance. This will give you an idea of what you are going to learn here. Or talking to students or graduates to be sure you are on the right path.

The examination system here is quite different: for each class, there are exam sessions. A class you took during the fall semester will have exam sessions typically in January, February, June-July-September. You need to decide when you want to give that class, and the best part is that if you get a bad grade, you may reject it and take the exam again in the next session! For me, this was an amazing thing because sometimes we all get anxious on exams, and I personally get particularly stressed if I know that I cannot take the exam again. Here, you experience this stress relatively less (at least this was the case for me), because it may happen that you get a very bad grade because you were tired, or maybe you couldn’t study enough, or you just made some basic errors. You can take it again and be sure that you learn the exam content well. Of course, overdoing that would also not be a good idea, but unless you keep your all good!

I think for many psychology students, the answer will be Portello! There is a nice river near our campus surrounded by cafes and bars. One of my favorite activities is to grab a beer and sit on the stairs on the lake after the class with my friends. Enjoy the sun and watch swimming swans!
Apart from this, I love the area near Beato Pellegrino (you must check the pictures of the library, it is a perfect spot for studying) and of course, Prato della Valle is always beautiful. Every time I go there, I actually remember that I live in Italy and it’s just so amazing. Also, living 20 minutes far from Venice and being able to go there for 4-5 euros as a student still sounds surreal to me.

During my first two years in Padova I used to stay in one of the dormitories provided by university. My experience there was also very positive (still miss my old dorm) and we had a lot of funny moments there. One that comes to my mind is the fact that one of my Italian friends would organize pizza parties in which he would cook pizza for basically all students living in that dorm! Sometimes we would be 40 people in a small room eating pizza together and having beer. One of the best moments in my life.