IL DIPARTIMENTO
You’re the editor of Epigram this year. Are you enjoying it
and is it a direction for the future?
I’m loving it so yes to both! I became editor in June and yeah,
it’s just been great. It’s high pressure, and sometimes a struggle
to combine with the final year of a degree, which can be hard
enough on its own, but it’s worth it for the brilliant people I’ve
met through it, the amount I’ve learned about the university and
Bristol students and the fun I’ve had. It’s also the staff; I’m very
grateful to all the writers and editors. I think if you’d have asked
me this a year ago I wouldn’t have been so sure at all but, partly
because I’ve enjoyed Epigram and that kind of world so much,
I think it’s more than likely that I will at least try and go into a
career in journalism.
“
I became editor in June and yeah,
it’s just been great.
I saw an interesting comment piece on Epigram which was very popular, entitled “Bristol: Love the city, hate the university.” What was
your take on that?
That was interesting. I think we live in a brilliant city and the
university is, in many respects, really good. Over the last few
years there’s been, understandably, a real growth in dissatisfaction
among students, particularly in arts and social sciences. For me,
it’s clearly connected to the rise in student numbers, which has
been particularly high in arts and social sciences. But it’s more to
do, I think, with the cost of everything, on top of tuition fees. I
don’t think university should be a consumer good but you can’t
escape the fact that people will start to ask more questions about
what they’re paying for when they are paying so much. So it has
to stop standards dropping, not let the student:staff ratio rise
and treat the lecturers with more respect. It has to realise that
students aren’t going to be happy if too many are being let in. It
impacts on opportunities for everyone.
Your dad comes from Turin but on your year abroad you went to
Naples and Palermo. Why there and how did you find it?
Good question! I’d never been to the south before. My dad actually encouraged me to go there. For me, I wanted the year abroad to
be as different an experience as possible to what I’m used to and
Naples and Palermo on the whole are so different to the whole
north of Italy, let alone England or other European countries.
The whole way of life, the food, the mentality of the people, the
natural beauty… everything about it is incomparable. The people
were really welcoming as well. In Palermo they’re not at all used
to English people living there. They would say “English people
come here to study? Shouldn’t that be the other way around?” I
was such a novelty, almost like a local celebrity! I’d walk into a
bakery to order something and they’d say, “You’re from London?
I’ve never met a Londoner before! My granddad’s uncle’s brother
once went to London…”
The Italians take the north/south divide quite seriously. As someone
with Torinese heritage who spent a year in the south, what’s your
take on that?
I’m a massive convert; I’ve admitted it to my friends and relatives
in the north. I’m completely converted to the southern way of
life. I’ve been studying a unit on Naples this year which has been
really interesting. The levels of abuse in literature, newspapers
and everywhere, really, that places like that get are astonishing.
Even in this country, in respectable newspapers!