SAA ALUMNI
I attended the Master’s Degree in African and Asian Studies, graduating in 2020. I chose this course to continue the studies in African history that I had begun, also at the University of Pavia, during my Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and International Relations.
I was thus able to pursue my research, which I began during my Bachelor’s
thesis, on relations between Tunisia and Italy in the 19th century. This research was
enriched, during my Master’s Degree, thanks to the knowledge I acquired while attending
SAA courses and thanks to the international mobility I carried out in Tunisia at the
Université de La Manouba within the framework of the Erasmus ICM project.
My international experience, archival and field research, and the skills provided to me by the
SAA courses were fundamental to the success of my Master’s thesis, and subsequently
enabled me to win a PhD scholarship in History at the University of Teramo, thanks to
which I am continuing the work I started at the University of Pavia.
The Master’s Degree in African and Asian Studies therefore offers excellent tools and a solid basis for approaching even long-term historical research. Furthermore, the study of non-European languages, the various possibilities of international mobility and the multidisciplinary nature of the course represent a wealth of knowledge necessary to approach an increasingly interconnected and
complex world and useful for any professional path.
My interest had been attracted by SAA for the variety of subjects studied and for the
multidisciplinary approach which gave the possibility of studying the countries of the Afro-
Asian area by analyzing their history, politics and religion, but also the system of relations
international, political and economic conditions in which they find themselves.
The conferences at the University, the thesis research work, the professors, all the
meetings and friendships made within the University were a special experience, very
stimulating well above expectations.
I currently work as a legal operator at the foreign branches of various municipalities in
southern Milan and in integration projects. The knowledge acquired during the training
course on the situations of the countries of origin, on the current law on migration and an
open and multicultural approach have been fundamental elements in outlining my post-
graduate future.
My name is Francesca Musolino and I attended the course in African and Asian Studies from 2015 to 2017. I chose this path because it was a natural follow-up to my first cycle degree course in Political Sciences and International Relations ( University of Pavia ) which I concluded with a thesis on the evolution of the Islamic State.
With the SAA course I satisfied my desire to enhance my knowledge of the Asian and African context from a political, historical and social point of view; this is made possible because the SAA course combines all these fields of learning alongside the acquisition of a non-European language, which in my case was Chinese.
I concluded my Master’s degree with a thesis called “Female genital mutilations from a demographic point of view in three African contexts: Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia”, thanks to this, I was able to enhance my knowledge in a delicate topic which we do not know much about. I was helped and supported by my lecturers.
After having carried out my Universal Civil Service in a home for children and young teenagers living in difficult family contexts, I am now working for UBI bank as a branch consultant. I have been working there for a year with a fixed work contract. Although what I am doing now may seem very far away from the competences I acquired in SAA, an open mind, my sense of curiosity and the effort put in during my studies, have been and still are, of fundamental help for me.