Silvia Serra is een Italiaanse student die op het expertisegebied Lifestyle & Health Promotion een onderzoek uitvoert naar de verschillen tussen een achterstandswijk in Italië en een hier in Nederland. Hieronder vertelt zij haar verhaal (in het Engels) over haar ervaringen en hoe ze hier terecht is gekomen.

Hi everybody, my name is Silvia and I am an Erasmus student. I come from Cagliari the capital of Sardinia, an Italian island. In my city I`m studying health care; a three-year bachelor programme in which the main subjects are statistics, epidemiology, prevention and health promotion. In the Netherlands this kind of work is more related to Nursing studies. In Italy, with 3 years of study, we can work in hospitals to control periodic visits to the staff, in all departments of prevention (vaccination, screening, epidemiology, cards of death, infectious diseases, laboratory, office and travelers.) and on the inside of family planning with sexual education, health education, courses pre and post birth. And if you still intend to study or if you don`t find a job, as often happens in Italy, you can take the specialist course (masters degree) to work towards management jobs in health departments.

The idea to come and study in the Netherlands during an Erasmus exchange was born when I visited the Netherlands. I was on holiday in Amsterdam and I have been a few times in the Netherland because I have an aunt and cousins who live in Germany, on the border with Holland. When I went to Nijmegen I was intrigued. The station with hundreds of bicycles and functionality of `all services (in Italy it is not exactly like that). The idea to live for a longer period in the Netherlands didn’t leave me, so I talked to my teacher and he recommended me to wait for the third year. He spoke a bit of the leading edge of the Netherlands especially with regard to the health promotion. All this is still more intriguing to me, also because I love to travel and I would like to work abroad.

During the second year I won two scholarships, one included a two-week summer course (ETC summer course) held in Wrexham (Wales), the other one scholarship was economic and decided to invest it for that trip, instead of two weeks have been there a month and I helped in the preparation of `ETC.

I did this mainly to improve my English because three years ago it was like zero. I don`t know if we are Italians who have a lot of difficulty to learn English or if it is my problem. That month in Wrexham was very nice and full of experiences.

My teacher participated in the same course and at the first opportunity he introduced me to Gwendolijn, immediately I tried to explain to her that I loved The Netherlands and I’d like to do the Erasmus with her and the HAN.

I was lucky to be in a group with her during the summer course; thanks to her, I could at least make myself understood and to understand others (the Spanish language has helped us), I was intimidated also because they were` more or less all professionals, I was the smallest and I could not even explain well the ideas that passed through my mind, she encouraged me and helped me a lot. I remember the last day, during the last goodbye I told her that she has been my mother for two weeks . During the course, our group has been working on a project on involvement and adolescents `approach to physical activity and I asked Gwen to continue the project together in Nijmegen.

When I went back to Cagliari I immediately applied for an Erasmus They accepted the request, and now I am here. Originally I wanted to stay at least six months, but my course of study of being three years is very intense and I could do only 3 months; looking back I almost didn`t finish in November.

Unfortunately, because of the late confirmation of acceptance by the Italian erasmus `office` , I could not take a university accommodation. This has somewhat affected my Erasmus `because I have a small apartment on the road to Ooij. It is somewhat isolated, although here it is very beautiful because I`m surrounded by nature. With the cold weather is has been a little difficult to move by bike but it was good for my health. The city is very nice and has many amenities. I love the tranquility and the friendliness of the Dutch people `. I am very well and after my masters degree I’d like to work here.

Since I can`t take exams here, because `it is an Erasmus placement, Gwen and I decided together to develop my thesis here. I could not continue the project started in Wrexham because is too difficult and they would need more time. Then Gwen offered me a project that had some points in common with the other. The objective is to understand the influence of the physical environment and resources on `physical activity in adolescents. It is very interesting topic because I will compare a poor Dutch neighborhood and a poor neighborhood of my city, Cagliari. I think there’ll be a lot to discuss. This project has been developed by the University of Wageningen, and me and another student from the HAN University, are working together on this, but look at different settings. .

Initially it was very difficult to start writing a thesis and do literature research , choose the tools that could be useful for my project because I can`t speak good English, but slowly I’m starting to develop something. It has been a little difficult to find literature on tools used in the past to assess the environmental resources to measure the `physical activity in adolescents, but I can` t wait to conclude this part of my job to go and use my tool in the Dutch neighborhood and observe all assets it has and to compare the data with Cagliari.

In the meantime, I’m taking private lessons in English to try to raise my level, I have plenty of time on weekends and usually I dedicate myself to visit other cities.

I really like my project theme because in Cagliari, and in Italy in general, physical activity is not encouraged, yet we have many resources available in the city of Cagliari, there is a beautiful sea with a beach several kilometers long, some parks, many gyms, swimming pools and sport clubs. If someone likes to run or do yoga it`s ok, but the policy of the city does not encourage physical activity and citizens are left to themselves, the prices for all sports are too high. I’d like there to be parks with equipment and tools to be used for physical activities such as basketball hoops, football fields or anything like that on the streets that there would be bike paths as in the Netherlands, that the prices of gyms, swimming pools, water sports etc. would be more financially accessible (at least for young people) to encourage them to practice physical activity.

if I were to give advice to other students is to travel, to take every opportunity to study in other universities, to know new places, and enrich your knowledge, I suggest you go always in an accommodation for students because it is nice to meet new people and stay in touch with each other, help each other (this is the only thing that I regret) and I advise you to come to Italy because it is beautiful, but only on holiday or to Erasmus, because there is too much crisis.

Best regards,

Silvia