Hello, I have been noticed that some people may struggle with creating their own characters that are Italians or located in Italy so I wanted to share and help you out with this one with some tips !!

• We don’t have states but regions: Lombardia, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Piemonte, Veneto, Trentino Alto Adige, Valle d’Aosta, Toscana, Emilia Romagna, Marche, Umbria, Abruzzo, Lazio, Campania, Puglia, Calabria, Sardegna, Sicilia. Sicilia and Sardegna are the Islands and we are divided by North, Center and South (I currently live in South Italy, more specifically Campania but I won’t say which one of the provinces).

• The province/municipality are towns that are present in the various regions, kinda like American’s towns of the various states.

• We DO have universities but not colleges and they’re both private, which are very expensive and some even closed members numbers like they’ve a specific maximum number of students per year/course, and public, which are usually either closed numbers like private (more often for medicine or law) or open numbers. We do have scholarships but it rarely given by sportive merits, it’s more about academic merits and ISEE (which also helps ya to not pay the maximum fee per semester), that’s basically how much “rich” you are and it’s called “Borsa di Studio” and can be used almost for everything, even outside of the study related stuff like textbooks and such. The names of the years are called “Triennial” and “Magistral” and are easily to be understood and what they stand for.

• The name that we use for university students who are out of their regions is “Fuorisede” literally “out of state” or something along that lines who rents apartments (which are always short term and expensive, some even one room apartment) or live in the studentati, which is the equivalent of the american’s dorms. There is also a lot of students who decides to study in their region but have to go to university through buses, trains and other public transport services, which comes to help also a subscription fee whom is more affordable than the full price but it isn’t automatically renewed so you have to request every single year of university.

• Live in the capital of each region is very expensive sometimes and the jobs aren’t very much available, especially for young people, and also the wage isn’t really good. The tip culture here doesn’t exist and it’s totally and completely voluntary.

• We have public healthcare but sometimes the queue for a checkup or test is really long so some people are resorting to private healthcare, even if it’s expensive.

• Every region has its own culture and traditions, even foods. For example I came from a municipality that is multicultural so we share roots with Hispanic and other cultures, like our weddings are always long and very common to see kids fall asleep on chairs while the party is still ongoing.

• The religion is actually a very important aspect for some people and families, even if yourself is atheist or agnostic, so kids always are seen to not have much say in the matter and found themselves have to take part of religion class in school and receive baptism (usually as newborns) and first communion.

• We have three principal grades of school, which are also obligatory: elementary (that goes from six, sometimes five thanks to a thing called Primina, which allows kids to start obligatory school earlier, to ten years), middle school (which starts at ten/eleven years old to thirteen years old) and superior/liceo (which starts at fourteen years old and usually should end at eighteen years old, unless a student isn’t repeating a year). We can’t chose our classes or schedules, unless it’s religious class, and when we start high school we can choose in what we will specialize in for the future (examples include economics and finance, scientific, social workers, cosmetics {even if it’s more a private course than a public one}, fashion design, graphic design (which is also my personal course of studies), arts, culinary and so on). Some high school allows a diploma that it’s full so the university isn’t obligatory like a liceo’s one (which are mainly classic, art, science, linguistics and human sciences). High school years are divided in Biennial (which are the first two years) and Triennial (which are the last three years).

• We don’t have a diploma ceremony and much free time after school, in fact some students have to give up on their own hobbies and activities due to the amount of homeworks we have to do, and some school-related activities are mainly either paid by the families or by the school with some funds from european funds/projects. We do have a final exam called “Esame di Maturità”, literally “Maturity’s Exam”, which is divided into written exams and oral exams.

• We have a thing called “Erasmus”, which allows students to go temporarily live and study into a specific country but also there are requirements to apply. We have school trips of more days but all depends from which years you are.

• We have a thing called “interrogation” and are basically oral exams that you have to take and do during the scholastic years and semester otherwise your grades can be affected and you can risk a thing called “Debito”, which is failing and makeup/redo tests and so on.

• We have a special school program for students whom have dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, ADHD, autism and so on and are called DSA (which stands for Disturbs Specific of Apprehension). I personally had this program due to my dyslexia and dyscalculia so I had programmed interrogations, more simplified tests/exams and so on. DSA students may face bullying and ableism for this (I personally suffered it too).

• We have a serious problem with bullying and female homicides (which are called femminicidi) but also with raising homophobia and racism.

• We DO have rich and poor parts of the urbans.

• We also have dialects for each region and even municipalities.

I think I added what I could add and know, let me know if you want to know more about my country and I will reply as much as possible <3.

Bye bye~