Simona Di Martino tells us what it’s like to be a PhD student and GTA in Italian Studies, between thesis writing, applying for fellowships (and getting them, congrats Simona!), and developing a podcast on Italian culture for all our students in Italian (beginners, intermediate, advanced).

I am Simona and I am… well, in less than a month I’ll be submitting my PhD thesis. It’s a fitting moment for all those classic clichés: ‘time flies’, or ‘I ended up in my last year in the blink of an eye’. It really seems like just yesterday that I started, full of beans and expectations, on my new path in the wild world of academia. It feels rewarding but also scary. What will it be like out there, outside the comfy bubble I’ve lived in for these past few years?

I feel like I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve certainly mastered time management! I found myself overwhelmed with deadlines: editing a special issue of an Italian literary journal by the end of the week, chapter 3 due by the end of the month, application to Warwick’s IAS Early Career Fellowship by the end of the day… I struggled a bit and I watched far fewer movies than usual at night; I tortured my boyfriend with talks about the authors I deal with in my thesis (I call them ‘my authors’, they’re my friends now); and I ate a bit more than usual (my boyfriend cooks very well, I must say).

It’s April and I can say, as my students taught me, that ‘I brought home the bacon’: my thesis is basically done, I got the IAS Fellowship (yay!), and I managed to upload the podcast I put together for Italian language learners to Spotify. It’s called ‘2 Passi 4 Chiacchiere’. If you want to listen to different Italian accents, learn the origin of ‘pasta alla carbonara’, meet inspector Montalbano and know more about water fountains in Rome, go check it out here! The first three episodes are there for you to enjoy.