The Insubria’s pride begins with a Lebanese student

Sometimes, to be proud of Varese and its university, one must come from afar. This is what happened to Tayoun Patrick, a 23-year-old Lebanese student who’s attending the third year of medicine and who’s the first foreign student to be elected to the Academic Senate of the Insubria University of Varese. He’s one of the most ardent university supporters.

And this is the reason why he decided to found and to become the leader of the Varese students, the new list of the Insubria University students which has definitely livened up one of the few unexploited democracy opportunities given to the university students. The event brought the student participation from 10 to 20 percent. " The result of all this is the product of hard work. We were always in contact with the students, we had a list of people that they knew. We might have given the students the will to participate even to those who weren’t voting anymore. "

 

Patrick, who currently speaks four languages (English, French, Arabic and Italian), has a program which is similar to a mantra: "I believe in brotherhood among the students: I wish it were easier to study all together, to create events. And then I would focus on the university student exchange: first between the Italian universities and then between the international ones". The neo-rep of the Academic Senate has been living at the DeFilippi since he began studying in Varese: "This university is like a second home to me. I have found some good friends with whom I can hang out with at the end the day and with whom I can share problems and moments of happiness. I got the the opportunity to meet extraordinary people, among which, Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi. I got the support of extraordinary rectors: first, Don Luca Violoni and then Don Stefano Saggin who are “great” people”.

 

The future is at home as an "eye doctor": "I would like to become an ophthalmologist, to go back to Lebanon and exercise there. And I would like to say "I graduated from the Insubria University” and people answering “oh wow! The famous one"". He came to Varese after a first attempt in Milan: "mostly because I have a brother who was studying pharmacy and who is about to graduate. I left Lebanon to study with him. But then I passed the exam at the Varese university and so I started to go back and forth from Milan to Varese. To tell the truth, if you want to study for good, commuting is exhausting. That’s why I decided to stay at the DeFilippi, and it has been a great decision. I started to meet people. I also discovered that it isn’t true that Varese people are closed, they just need to know you better. Nowadays, when I walk from the DeFilippi to the study room in Piazza XX Settembre,  I can’t do a hundred metres without greeting someone".

 

Patrick comes from Zgharta "the city from which two Lebanon presidents came from", and when he arrived, he met a professor who was one of his heros since he began surfing on the net back at home: "when I found out that my ophthalmology professor was Claudio Azzolini, I showed him his articles which I had brought from Lebanon. It has been an honour to know him and have him as a teacher. I discovered, then, that the university is full of professors who are famous and renowned abroad: that’s something to be proud of".