I nostri testimonials: Cigdem - Turchia

Student of Psychological Science

"Since Padua is a student city with a lot of students, I also had a chance to meet other international students as well, which made it possible for me to get familiar with even more cultures and people from different backgrounds" 

About myself 

I am Cigdem, I am an international student at the University of Padova coming from Turkey. I am currently in my third year of the Psychological Science degree programme. I have lived in Padua for 2 years now and it has been a wonderful experience for me. I got to experience a new place, a new culture as I lived here in Italy. Since Padua is a student city with a lot of students, I also had a chance to meet other international students as well, which made it possible for me to get familiar with even more cultures and people from different backgrounds. I can say that it really made me look at many situations also from a different points of view. It helped me to get out of my comfort zone or routine activities and made me try new things, which has made my time here full of fun and new experiences. I am grateful that I started this journey and hope to continue it in the best way possible.

Why did you choose the University of Padua and the Psychological Science degree programme? Why would you recommend it to other students?

The reason why I chose the degree in Psychological Science is because I always had an interest for human psychology. It was always fascinating to me to learn new things about it and understanding that there is somewhat a mechanism for our thoughts, and feelings. However, back in my high school I was majoring in maths and sciences, which allowed me to study mostly engineering, or technical fields. As I studied during high school, I understood that it was not what I want to major in and I would rather study in a field which has a somewhat a social aspect, containing humans rather than machines and biology that I was interested in. And I started to investigate job opportunities or fields and when I saw psychology it occurred to me that in fact, I always was interested about it. So why not study it? So, I decided that I was going to study psychology, but it was a hard turn for me to take because I was already near the end of my majors in high school, and I had to change my path a bit, but I took that step. The next step for me was to decide where to study it and I wanted to study abroad because based on my country's situation about education I thought it was not the best place for me to get the best education or the university life. So, I started investigating universities and degree opportunities abroad and Italy was a choice for me because it was such a beautiful country to live in, but also because it had good scholarship options, and living here is not as costly as some other European countries. Also based on my country's economic situation right now, that we have a crisis, these aspects made Italy such a good option for me. As I searched for the degree opportunities in Italy, I saw that University of Padua has an English bachelor's degree for psychology, so I applied here and started studying here. As a person who has studied her for 2 years now, I am very happy with my choice and would recommend it to other students as well if they are also interested in these fields.

What are the main features of your degree programme?

My degree program is more of a general, comprehensive course about psychology, which makes you experience different fields of psychology and get to know about them, be familiar with them, and gives you information broadly about these subjects. You get to experience different fields like animal psychology, neuropsychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, along with class opportunities also like AI. So, you can get to experience different areas of psychology, and it helps you to understand in which of them you see yourself in the future. If I were to add my opinion, I think sometimes it can become also too broad that I may rather study clinical psychology more, but also it is based on my interests and preferences.

Is there any class/subject that has stood out to you so far?

To me, the classes of Neuropsychology, Brain and Behavior were so much fun and interesting to learn about. As I was also interested in biology and especially how our brain works, the pathways, and even though they were hard to study or understand, I found them very interesting to learn about. The classes and the professors themselves were very good at their subjects and made the course even more interesting. I also liked the Clinical Psychology course very much as I got to learn detailed information on human psychology, and I could get the information that I wanted before coming to this university from very good professors and material.

Is there any advice you could give to prospective students when it comes to submitting their application and preparing for the entry test?

I would advise prospective students to read carefully the instructions provided by the university on the website and contact the offices if they have any questions on their mind. Application has several steps and procedures and it will be useful to understand everything correctly and making sure that all the information is filled out correctly so that the application could be submitted correctly. About the entry test, I would suggest prospective students to study regularly and give importance to the reasoning and biology subjects as students can find it compelling sometimes. And the biology part can have some detailed questions so it could be useful to fully comprehend the subjects. With consistent effort and will, I am sure they will be successful on the test and get in to the degree they want.

What advice would you give to potential students thinking of studying in Italy?

The first thing I would suggest them is to start searching for houses as soon as possible, because it's a very hard procedure to find a good house that you can live in, which has also good costs, because it's a really challenging market to find a place. But if they start searching a couple months prior to their arrival, and especially if they wouldn't leave the searching until the late summer, they can find a good place. But they should know that the housing situation gets really complicated and hard during the late summer. I would also suggest them to learn about the procedures for official processes in Italy because they can be challenging sometimes and getting a process done at some office could take hours or days sometimes if you don't know the procedure very well. And I would suggest them to travel as much as possible because Italy has a lot of good sights that you can see and is a really great location where you can visit several different cities of Italy or even different countries and gather new experiences.

Tell me a bit about student life in Italy. What do you do for fun and what are your favourite places to spend time?

The students usually go to Portello during night on Wednesdays to have fun, drink some spritz and socialize. It is a nice place; also during summer there are some activities there that you can find such as outdoor cinema, or naviglio with different stands of bars and food places that you can sit alongside the river of Portello. There are also DJ sets so you can also dance there. Other than that, there is the Ghetto area with nice and cute looking bars that you can go and sit with your friends and socialize with other students. You can also find specific activities at some bars such as karaoke nights and so on. Also, during the day, you can go and sit at Prato della Valle which is a very wide park and have a picnic there. You can also find activities according to your interest such as volleyball groups, bike riding groups, theatre groups and so on. Padova is a city that has mountains nearby that you can also go for hiking with your friends for a nice and nature-related activity.