Hi man I am a student in Italy too! We are lucky to have such a cool passion, every day I feel really graced and lucky. One of the best things is that our profession does not have a location and the culture is so vast! Uni has tought me really little! especially italian uni is really retro. Do you want a school? GitHub is your teacher. Learn to understand source code and contribute to it. With regards to connecting people: many think that a programmer has to live in his lab and, to be more focused, isolate himself. That is complete nonesense! I find myself so more creative and driven when I do completely unrelated things. When I come back from a trip I feel that drive of innovating because I have seen so many things! You solve problems if you don't have the problems. I hope this helps, as an italian too I understand you. Do not get dissapointed.

TL;DR Dan :)