Ca' Foscari in China

Student life during coronavirus crisis: Francesca describes her experience

Francesca Hu, a Chinese-Italian master’s student, describes the experience of living and studying at the university since the coronavirus outbreak began.

Here is what she recounts:

 

From February to March, Chinese students in Italy have experienced two “waves” of the coronavirus outbreak. The first one they heard about from news and social media thousands of miles away back in China; now, they are experiencing the second wave here in Italy. Compared with local students, international Chinese students were conscious early on of how challenging the situation could become, and in order not to make parents and friends worry, they consciously wore masks or chose to isolate themselves at home long before it became required by the Italian government of everyone.

Sheltering in place and living online

When the virus began to spread in Italy, Ca’ Foscari was one of the first universities to act, implementing a series of social-distancing and remote-working measures. Since the final days of February, the university has been employing online learning and evaluation in place of onsite lessons and exams, and it has also closed most of its buildings. The Italian government then instituted a “shelter in place” order on March 11. As a result, we students – as well as faculty and staff – are all carrying out our activities at home.

Some professors had a difficult time adjusting to teaching via digital tools, but our lessons are nonetheless on schedule and the system is quite practical: we can download all of the course materials prepared by teachers after logging in to the online leanring platform. The video lecture software is also easy to use.

Wining and dining

Since we are all stuck at home, we can’t stop eating. Considering the unprecedented enthusiasm of Italian people to clear out the supermarket, I chose the Chinese supermarket to avoid contact with the crowd!

I live in Mestre, the mainland part of the city of Venice, and fortunately, a nearby Chinese supermarket provides home delivery service (this isn’t an advertisement), which saved me when I was hungry but didn’t want to go out. I have to say that my culinary skills have improved by leaps and bounds: live for love and love food!

In short, no matter what all of the Chinese students in Italy have chosen – to return to China or stay in Italy – none of us are giving up.