Giuseppe Paterno, 96, Italy’s oldest student, celebrates after graduating. (Reuters)
Italy:
At 96, Giuseppe Paterno has faced many tests in life – child poverty, war and, most recently, the coronavirus pandemic. Now he has passed an exam which makes him the oldest university graduate in Italy.
This week, the former railwayman showed up to receive his diploma and the traditional laurel wreath awarded to Italian students on their diploma, applauded by his family, his teachers and his comrades over 70 years his junior.
“I’m a normal person, like a lot of others,” he said, when asked what it was like to graduate so late. “In terms of age, I surpassed everyone else but I didn’t do it for that.”
Already in his 90s when he enrolled for a degree in History and Philosophy at the University of Palermo, Paterno grew up loving books, but he never had the chance to study.
“I said ‘that’s it, now or never’, and so in 2017 I decided to register,” he told Reuters from his apartment in the Sicilian city of Palermo, who ‘it rarely leaves nowadays due to its fragility.
“I realized it was a little late to get a three year degree but I was like ‘let’s see if I can do it’.”
On Wednesday he finished first in his promotion with the highest honors, receiving congratulations from Chancellor of the University Fabrizio Micari.
GREAT DEPRESSION, THEN WAR
Growing up in a poor family in Sicily in the years before the Great Depression, Paterno received only basic education as a child. He enlisted in the Navy and served in World War II before working in the railroads, marrying and raising two children.
In a society focused on post-war reconstruction, work and family were the top priorities, but Paterno wanted to learn and graduated from high school at the age of 31, always with the desire to go further.
“Knowledge is like a suitcase that I carry with me, it’s a treasure,” he says.
Giuseppe Paterno takes his final exam online.
As a student, he tapped his essays on the manual typewriter his mother gave him when he retired from the railroads in 1984. He avoided Google in favor of printed books and did not. not been tempted by late night student parties when she turned 20. – former classmates, who warmly applauded him at the graduation ceremony.
“You are an example for young students,” her sociology professor Francesca Rizzuto told her after taking her final oral exam in June.
Paterno admitted a bit of unease with the video calls that replaced classroom teaching during the coronavirus shutdown, but said he was not put off by the disease itself after the war and all that he had crossed.
“All of this has made us, all of my peers, all those who are still alive,” he said. “It didn’t really scare us.”
As for what he plans to do next, he said he wasn’t about to stop now that he had graduated.
“My plan for the future is to devote myself to writing; I want to revisit all the texts that I haven’t had the opportunity to explore further. That’s my goal.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
