Make the moment perfect. Da Londra a Novara per trovare in UPO una realtà che accoglie e sorprende

Timo Siegel è uno studente tedesco che studia Finanza alla Bayes Business School di Londra. Ha trascorso a Novara un breve periodo per concentrarsi sulla stesura della propria tesi di laurea collaborando strettamente con il professor Gianluca Fusai, docente UPO che insegna in entrambe le realtà accademiche. Ha trovato nel Piemonte orientale un punto di vista sul mondo nuovo che lo ha ispirato come studioso e come persona. Gli abbiamo chiesto di raccontarci brevemente le sue impressioni sull'esperienza in Piemonte e in UPO.

“Non aspettare il momento perfetto. Prendi il momento e rendilo perfetto.” Don't wait for the perfect moment, make the moment perfect. That is more or less how I decided to go to Novara (UPO), and how I see my time here.

From London to Novara

I am Timo and I study Finance at Bayes Business School in London; I spent my thesis period at Università del Piemonte Orientale. I had spent time in Italy before, so settling into Novara was easy and took only a day or two. Especially thanks to the help and warm welcome of professor Gianluca Fusai, who is a Full Professor at both Bayes Business School and UPO. I had met him in London, which guaranteed a smooth transition. His guidance throughout my time in Novara truly shaped my experience here.

More here than you might expect

Novara is considered small, and it is, but there is more to it than that. The Duomo and the cupola of San Gaudenzio are worth an afternoon on their own. The food is great, traditional, the pizza especially, and the ice cream corner shops are iconically Italian. In summer the outdoor pool is a fantastic place to spend a morning or an evening with a lot of Italian locals. On weekends I cycled out towards the Ticino and along the country roads. And when I wanted a bigger city, Milan is only forty minutes by train, with Arona on Lago Maggiore and Como about the same. So Novara is a quiet base with plenty within reach and opportunities to explore. Novara is full of hidden gems, if you look for them.

My thesis, and what the exchange gave me

My thesis is in health economics. The topic is the marginal productivity of health spending: I replicate and update Gandjour (2023) for the German statutory health insurance system, with Martin et al. (2023) on the English NHS as the comparison. A question like that is not tied to one country, which is why I was glad to work on it here. Meetings with Professor Anna Menozzi and Professor Massimiliano Piacenza gave me a perspective I would not have had in London. They asked insightful questions and suggested a few directions I had not thought of. This gave a lot of meaningful qualitative Italian thoughts to my topic and helped me develop my project more clearly than when I left London.

What I take away

The stay was short but full of experiences, so I got a lot out of it, and most of that was down to the people. Everyone I met at UPO was welcoming and helpful from the start, which made the whole thing easy and genuinely enjoyable. In Germany we have a saying that you always meet twice in life, and I am sure not only will I come back to Novara but also stay in contact with the people I met.