I feel privileged to be one of the alumni of the Warwick-Birmingham MA in Italian Studies: Culture and Communication. After studying at the University of Warwick as a Socrates/Erasmus student, I returned to my home university (Siena) to graduate and intending to come back to the UK for a postgraduate programme. I decided to continue my education in the UK, and to go for the joint Warwick - Birmingham MA. The course has an excellent reputation and resources, and both universities are rewarding places to study. As a postgraduate Master student, the Ph.D. was my next objective, and the MA (2005-2006) was an extremely good opportunity to develop intellectual depth in the fields of my current doctorate research. The course is challenging and inspiring, and is guided by a multi-disciplinary team of academic experts who played a significant role for enhancing my career. The intellectual support I have received from the academic staff has been outstanding. The core staff also helped me to manage my time, and organize my research project that is based on different areas of Italian Studies (Film, Literature, Gender and Psychoanalysis). As a prospective teacher (and lecturer) of Italian Studies, I also received an excellent training that allowed me to contribute to the department's teaching community in both universities. The teaching skills I acquired during the MA were crucial in defining my career path as a current postgraduate teaching assistant in the Department of Italian at the University of Warwick. I believe being enrolled in the programme is a unique experience also because I had full access to services and facilities, and I was involved in the academic and extra-academic activities of both universities. I strongly recommend the Warwick- Birmingham MA to all those who want to have a superb graduate experience!
Upon completing my Undergraduate degree, I felt that there were still many areas of Italian language and culture that I wished to study and the Warwick-Birmingham MA seemed to be an ideal course on which to do so. The programme provides students with two core models that offer essential skills in research and critical reading and also a very broad range of module options: I particularly enjoyed the module on 'Emigrants, Migrants, Immigrants', which spanned contemporary Italian history, politics and literature - all of which are areas of special interest for me. Moreover, the MA also offers students a great deal of flexibility in choosing their own essay titles and research project; for me, this meant the possibility of moulding the course to fit my own needs. At the same time, we also all knew that if ever help was required, there would be someone at hand: with two Departments at our disposal, there will always be someone with the right expertise!
I am now enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Birmingham and believe that the MA programme both influenced my choice to continue studying and prepared me extremely well for the challenges of a thesis.
One of the things I enjoyed most about being a student on the Birmingham-Warwick MA was being a full-time member of both universities. This was a real privilege as it meant that I had access to facilities at both institutions - having access to two libraries made a substantial difference when preparing for seminars and writing assignments as it improved the quality of research I was able to undertake. Being a student on a joint MA also had the advantage of being taught by double the number of teaching staff. Each member of staff teaches his/her specialism which not only ensures high-quality teaching, but also provides a broad range of subject areas from Dante to nineteenth-century women's writing. In my view, one of the best things about the education I received on the MA was the sheer breadth of material covered. Whilst the compulsory modules provided me with the opportunity to sample a range of topics and build a solid foundation of knowledge, the more specialised modules, for example teaching Italian as a foreign language, enabled me to focus my studies on particular areas of interest.
The Birmingham-Warwick MA has most definitely influenced my career path. After completing the module Emigrants, Migrants, Immigrants, I went on to write my dissertation on Italian American Women Writers. During my research, I noticed a distinct lack of critical appraisal on the writings of Italian migrants in Britain and upon completing my MA decided to undertake doctoral study in this area.
The MA was a truly inspirational course which proved to be life-changing at the end of the year as my dissertation served as a springboard for my PhD.
