Urbino, a new Help Desk for foreign students
di
Agnese Fioretti - Pubblicato il
22/05/2013
URBINO – The foreign students who attend the University of Urbino come from 70 countries all around the world, such as East Europe, South America, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine: they embody a great richness for this town, which opened a new welcome service in order to help them.
The Help desk for international students, promoted by Ersu and Uic (Urbino International Centre), was presented yesterday and will help foreign students to face the difficulties they might find in their studies.
The Help Desk office, located in via del Popolo N° 11, will be open from 9.30 to 12.30 pm; There Cinzia Carboni, an Ersu’s employee, with two girls, who are fluent in foreign languages will assist the students. On the help desk website the students will be also able to find useful information in six different languages: Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Greek.
During the presentation of this new service, the help desk, Giancarlo Sacchi, the president of Ersu, said: “Those who leave their family and decide to study abroad, need to find a friendly environment, where they could feel at home again”. Sacchi has also talked about his experience at Cambridge University: “All those who have studied there feel like they still belong to that place all life long. This is the spirit we’d like to recreate here in Urbino”.
There are about one thousand foreign students attending the University of Urbino, which represents the 8% of the total students. The national average is 3%, therefore Urbino is still one of the foreign students’ favourite destinations. Many have come here by word of mouth, some other decide to continue here their studies after their Erasmus experience, even though at the beginning the approach with a new culture hasn’t been easy.
These are the words of a tunisian student: “I came here two years ago to study economics and when I’ve arrived I had to face many difficulties, concerning mainly burocracy and healthcare”. He kept on explaining that the language was his biggest problem: “When I first arrived I already knew It
alian, but since many of my foreign classmates couldn’t speak the language, i often happened to be their guide”.
Welcome facilities so far have never let our guests down, Massimo Fortini, director of Ersu, said: “The 44% of the students consider them good, while the 33% consider them sufficient and the 5% excellent”. The purpose of the Help Desk is actually to improve the existent services and to encourage new students to choose Urbino. “Our university has always welcomed foreign students, and now more than ever, since our neighborhood is the world itself”. These were the words of the mayor, Franco Corbucci.
