Riccardo Filippo, Isidoro Nigri and Giulio Maria Raffa are three men who, after having taken the intensive program to prepare for the foreign service competition offered by the LUISS School of Government, won the competition to work as legation secretaries on a trial basis at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Invited to participate in a class with Professor Raffaele Marchetti in front of the new students in the program at the SoG, they recounted the steps of their journey, gave advice and answered questions from the other aspiring diplomats.
Of the three, Riccardo did all of his studies at LUISS, studying International Relations at the Department of Political Science. The idea of trying for a diplomatic career became more real after an internship at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the European Union in Brussels, thanks to the CRUI programs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The internship was a defining moment for my subsequent choices. At the suggestion of my supervisor, Professor Elena Sciso of International Law, I decided to take the preparation course at LUISS. It was an important program from several points of view: it gave me a way to systematically review all of the material from my university years, with a deeper understanding of certain very important topics for the competitive examination."
Giulio realized as well that his calling was in diplomacy after an internship at the Permanent Mission of Italy in New York. With a degree in Political Science at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa, he chose the preparation course at LUISS because of the quality of the teaching faculty, the number of students in the program and the university’s facilities. "It was a good place to train for the competition. Preparing for the exam completely absorbs you, and the ability to use the online databases and to study until late at night at these facilities was a great opportunity."
Isidoro, on the other hand, wanted to be a diplomat since he began studying in Perugia. "I knew that there was a possibility that it wouldn’t go so well, but that was my main objective. So when my thesis supervisor, Professor Francesco Clementi, told me about the program at the SoG, I decided to take steps to fulfill my dream."
When they spoke with the new students of the course, one of the most popular topics had to do with the results of the practice tests that the course offers for the five different exams within the competition. "Practice tests are important to understand which aspects of the five areas represent your strengths and which are your weaknesses. This way your preparation can be focused on addressing your personal shortcomings," says Giulio. "Learn to love the things you are studying: there will always be a book that you haven’t read and the professors are the first ones humble enough to say that it is impossible to read everything. What counts is what you bring to the exam in your head and with your pen." "The competitive exam requires you to recalibrate your mental attitude,” adds Isidoro, “and therefore you need intense concentration and total dedication. But the fact that it is a highly competitive exam does not exclude the possibility of working together in groups. In fact, studying in pairs helps you to better confront the strengths and weaknesses in your preparation and to resolve them."
Now that they have really started down their path as legation secretaries at the Farnesina, the thrill of success is contrasted with their understandable worries, with the right amount of ambition and with a sense of responsibility. "It is a great honor that inspires a certain fear,” says Riccardo. “There is a lot of enthusiasm, an enormous desire to get started and a little bit of humility in approaching head-on something so important like representing my country." "I am really happy to begin doing this type of work, which for me is a service,” concludes Giulio. “The idea of working for the State and giving something back has always appealed to me."