Young people from various parts of Italy, with different stories and aspirations, gathered in Piazza Fiera in Trento to celebrate their graduation with families and friends. An event that celebrated the University and its community for 440 recent graduates in a joyful atmosphere.
The eleventh graduation ceremony was organized by the University of Trento in collaboration with the Autonomous Province of Trento and the City of Trento.
It opened with the arrival of the academic procession that reached Piazza Fiera from Palazzo Sardagna, home of the Rectorate, while the orchestra was performing the National Anthem of the Italian Republic. After the institutional greetings, Rector Flavio Deflorian took the floor.
In his speech, the Rector underlined the importance of quality education and said that the ability to think critically, curiosity, love of knowledge, the ability to listen and to observe are useful in life. "University education provides knowledge, and knowledge is freedom. Without knowledge there is no freedom", he said.
He then focused on the usefulness of learning for life itself and to better understand the world. Our University is only 60 years old, but the idea of an education institution is much older: "The university is one of the most precious human inventions. You are a piece of this millennial history".
The Rector encouraged those who have finished their studies to stay in contact with the University through the Alumni UniTrento community and the Mentoring and career orientation courses: "The University of Trento will always be your home and we will always be here to give you a piece of advice".
In wishing students all the best for their future, he invited them to "make the most of what you have learned". On the war in Ukraine he said: "These are sad times for the world and for Europe in particular. But you have learned that you have the strength and the ability to overcome these difficulties, and the intelligence to change things for the better. It is important that you continue to work with passion, seriousness, commitment, because those are the values that brought you here this morning to celebrate your graduation. I hope that you will be better than us. I bet on each one of you, for the years to come".
The ceremony was attended by Chiara Lucchini, who graduated in Law in 2017 and is now a lawyer and legal counsellor at Centro Astalli in Trento.
She addressed the attendees to tell about her experience: "I realized that my autonomy is based not on being independent, but on being interdependent with other people. The interdependence that I have learned and experienced thanks to my disability has become the approach that I choose to adopt in every area of my life, every day, simply because being together is better. Each and every one of us contribute and the benefits are for all". Interdependence is her lifestyle: in her automated home and during the Erasmus in Spain, in skiing as in her current work where she assists applicants and holders of international protection. Her message to the graduates was this: "May you experience autonomy as interdependence – in life, in study and work. Experience for yourselves the value of not being alone, choose and learn to ask not to be alone".
Another address, from a representative of the student community, was given by Davide Guidolin, a graduate in Computer Science and currently a Master's student in Artificial Intelligence Systems as well as a competing swimmer who chose UniTrento, among other things, for the sports programme.
He remembered the difficult months of the pandemic, when the University did its best to maintain contact with students and he himself provided IT support to the teaching staff and classmates. He spoke about the internship, the dissertation he was able to write while working at a Boston-based AI company that has a research centre in Trento, and about a second internship in a leading computer science company. The advice he wanted to share with the attendees was this: "Set yourself a goal and work to achieve it. Even in the most difficult moments, stay focused on your goal until you reach it, and you will see that sooner or later you will succeed".
The diploma awarding ceremony started after the Choir and Orchestra played the Ode to Joy, when Rector Flavio Deflorian and the Vice Rector for equity and diversity policies, Barbara Poggio, started to hand out the degrees first to a group of doctors and then to recent graduates.
To conclude the event, the University Choir and Orchestra performed Gaudeamus Igitur, the university anthem, then the Rector welcomed the new graduates who launched their caps in the air on the notes of Handel's Hallelujah.
An Italian Sign Language interpreter provided by the National Association of the Deaf (Ente Nazionale Sordi Onlus) was present at the ceremony.
Celebrating the new graduates
The graduation ceremony honoured some newly graduated PhDs from the 32nd and 33rd cycle (2020-2021 calendar years) of the University's doctoral programmes and students who earned their Bachelor's degree between September 2021 and March 2022 in: Business Administration and Law; Cultural Heritage; Comparative, European and International Legal Studies; Economics and Management; Philosophy; Physics; Business Management; Computer Science; Civil Engineering; Telecommunications Engineering; Information and Communications Engineering; Information Engineering and Business Organisation; Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering; Industrial Engineering; Engineering for the Environment and Territory; Interfaces and Communication Technologies; Modern Languages; Mathematics; Cultural Heritage Sciences; Sciences and Techniques of Cognitive Psychology; Biomolecular Sciences and Technologies; Social Service; Sociology; International Studies; Historical and Philological-Literary Studies; Viticulture and Oenology.
For more information: www.unitn.it/cerimonia-laurea