But I thought foreign students didn't have to read that book....

What have I been doing in the month of January? Well, classes don’t start until February/March (once again, a very indefinite time frame), so have been preparing myself for the one thing I’ve been dreading most since my arrival.

The oral exam.

My very first exam with the University of Bologna was on Wednesday. The topic: Contemporary Italian Literature. A class I finished at the beginning of November, so I was definitely nervous.           

At 9 am, I was outside Professor Bazzochi’s office shoved into the hallway with 80 other students signed up to take the exam. I was not actually able to sign up online because I only took his course for half credit. So as he went through the list calling each name to see who showed up, I waited anxiously to shove my way to the front and sign a piece of paper for the “fuori lista” (off the list) students.

“For those the last forty names I called please come back around noon. For those students off the list, we’re going to try to put you in the empty spaces of the students who don’t show up so please stay in this area.”

Great, I was going to sit in a hallway with 80 other panicking Italian students as I await my doom.

The exam took place inside Bazzochi’s tiny office. He also had three other assistants give exams with him. Not only would I have to speak thoughtfully and slowly. But some Italian kid would be sitting next to me doing the same thing. Talk about having trouble concentrating.

The first hour went by relatively fast. I spent it with my head bent down devouring my typed up notes. Some of the really enlightening information I managed to take down for the course included sentences like…

“ It is easier to understand a work from long ago than one that is piu vicino” (translation: closer)

“The passage is important because….what did he just say????” 

 "Finestissiasi????" (Not a real word in any language)

And…

“Egg metaphor: We are the yolk. Tradition is the shell.”

I was not feeling very confident.

My second hour in the hallway I decided to go to the bathroom. It was locked.

Third hour: I started to watch student reactions as they left the office. Some left without a word, others had very detailed discussions with their friends about the questions they were asked. This is completely normal for an Italian exam. Professors tend to rotate through the same 10 questions, so it’s very likely that your friends could help you out.

Every once in a while someone would burst out and shriek “Trenta!” to his/her friends. This means 30 or full points. For the American grading system, 30 and 29 are A’s, 28 is an A-, 27 is a B+, and 26 is a B. I had decided I would refuse anything under a 26 and just try it again at the end of February.

Hours 4 and 5, I took a lunch break. They were only on number 40 and it was starting to look like they were saving all the off the list students until the very end.

Those last few hours before they called my name were the worst. My palms were so clamy, I probably could have washed my hair in the sweat.

By the time they called my name, there were only 4 other people in the hallway. I had waited 7 hours. And it was finally my turn to fail.

I sat down across from one of the assistants. The girl. I heard she was nicer.

“Why don’t we start with a question that’s a little more complicated.”

(Nervous laugh) “Uh, ok.”

“Compare the two books Cristo si e’ fermato a Eboli and Sud e Magia.”

I froze.

“Foreign students didn’t have to read Sud e Magia…”

“Oh,  I know. Just tell me what you know from lecture.”

“Ummmm. Well….The author of Sud e Magia is De Martino. It’s about magic. That’s really it. Magic is also really important in Cristo.”

It went on like that for a while. I was struggling. But, she didn’t really seem to be listening. She cut me off several times to describe some things to me and kept looking around at her colleagues. I think she was just bored.

She also asked me about the sottoproletariato in Pasolini. I don’t know what that word means. Have you ever heard of the under-proletariat? So, I fudged through that one as well. When she asked me to describe a poem by Pasolini I simply said…

“In L’Appennino, Pasolini describes Italy from Lucca to Napoli…”

(Completely interuptting me) “Good, good that’s all I need.”

We finished the exam before I was really done talking. She smiled at me saying, you clearly read the books and speak very good Italian so I’m going to go ahead and give you full points.

A 30! I couldn’t believe I scraped a 30 out of that mess of nerves and what I thought was my worst Italian ever.

The moral of this story is that Italian exams make no sense. They make you wait all day, feeling like jumping off the building might be more productive, for an exam that only lasts five minutes. I was just lucky to go last. We’ll see how lucky I am next time.