Pictured: Fabio Sola uses video chat apps for both class work and socializing during the lockdown in Italy. (Photo by Marco Sola)
Dave Paone
Campus News
Fabio Sola is in his last year of a five-year program at Sapienza University of Rome, in the capital city of Italy. Time marched on at its usual speed, bringing the end of his college days closer.
But no more.
Because of the worldwide coronavirus, all of Italy has been on lockdown since March 10. That means everyone is required to stay at home with only a few exceptions, such as grocery shopping. (Believe it or not, the Italian government has named tobacco stores as essential businesses.)
Fabio hasn’t been to class on campus in weeks. Ordinarily he’d ride his motorized scooter from his family’s apartment to school. (Not quite the Vespa Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck rode in the movie Roman Holiday, but the same idea.)
Italian education is structured a little differently from that of the United States. High school is five years, an undergraduate degree is three years (known as a “three-year degree”) and a graduate degree (specialization) is an additional two years (known as a “five-year degree”).
The final step of both degrees is for a student to write his thesis and present it to a board as well as members of the public. This is done in person, with the student standing at a podium in an auditorium.
Upon completion of the presentation, students are told their final grades and that’s the end of college. There’s no graduation ceremony and diplomas are picked up another day.
However, students often have a small celebration right there on the spot. They bring food and drink and have a small party with friends and family outside of the building.
Fabio and his classmates won’t be wrapping up college in this traditional way. Instead, his presentation will be delivered via a video conference and about four weeks later than scheduled.
College students in Italy are no different from their US counterparts in that they like to socialize. Ordinarily, 26 year-old Fabio would be attending parties and concerts regularly at this time in his life, but socializing has pretty much come to a grinding halt. He video chats with his girlfriend, Laura, using the House Party app, which isn’t quite the same as being in the same room with her, but will have to do for the time being.
Essentially, modern technology has made the lockdown bearable.
Italy has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Confirmed cases are in the tens of thousands and there have been thousands of deaths, although the Sola family doesn’t personally know anyone diagnosed with the virus or anyone who died from it.
“The mood is getting ugly very fast,” said Fabio’s father, Marco, who graduated from Hofstra University in 1986. “Yesterday was the worst day,” he said on March 22, regarding the country’s nearly 800 deaths in a single day.
While Rome is known as the Eternal City, the lockdown won’t be eternal and Rome, as well as the rest of Italy, one day will return to normalcy. Until that day comes, Fabio and his fellow countrymen have to stay put.
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