New students' restaurant
A first class students' restaurant will open tomorrow Tuesday the 5th of December 2017 in via A Bassi, opposite the Department of Physics. The new restaurant, the result of a project led by EDiSU and carried out in close coordination with the University, will provide a crucial service to undergraduates and postgraduates who study at the Departments located in via T Taramelli, C Forlanini and A Bassi (Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Physics, Biochemistry, Physiology, Anatomy, Genetics, Pathology and Forensic Medicine) and to the students of nearby Collegio C Golgi and A Volta.
The new restaurant represents an extensive refurbishment of an earlier facility and provides both the excellent food that students may expect in this part of the world as well as modern and high-quality furniture and logistics.
College students are warmly invited to attend the opening ceremony tomorrow (12.00 noon) led by EDiSU President P Benazzo, EDiSU Finance Director C Grignani and the Chancellor of the University F Rugge, and make regular use of the new facility.
Nanosensors & Medicine
G Longo, a scientist at the CNR Institute for the Institute for the Structure of Matter in Rome will give a seminar at 2.00 pm at the Unit of Immunology and General Pathology of the Department of Medicine (9, via A Ferrata). The seminar is entitled Nanomechanical sensors to study at the nanoscale biomedical challenges and will describe major advances in the field of nanosensor and their applications to biologica and medical problems.
The poster can be found here, the abstract of the seminar can be found here.
All College students, and in particular students in Medicine, Biotechnology, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering are welcome to attend.
EDiSU Welcome Day
EDiSU will hold its traditional, annual welcome day tomorrow in the College lecture theatre at 6.30 pm.
The event will involve speeches by F Rugge, University Chancellor, P Benazzo, EDiSU President, and S Pezzini, a post-doctoral fellow at Radboud University in Holland and previously a student in one of the EDiSU College. The poster of the event can be found here.
The speeches will be followed by a reception. All students are welcome to attend. Attendance by freshers is compulsory.
VSU Committee
College students have elected the new Executive Committee of the Volta Students' Union (VSU). Only six candidates stood for election and a total of 60 students voted (down from > 90 in October 2016).
The students elected to the Committee are: Paride Maddalena, Monica Passanante, Lucia Fruga, Valentina Astesana, Thanh Hang Bui and Daniele Susca. Paride Maddalena secured the highest number of votes and will act as President of the VSU Committee for 2017/18.
The College wishes to thank the students who made themselves available for serving in the Committee.
Language Courses
The much awaited College language Courses will take off next week and will involve nearly hundred students: half studying English, half studying French or German.
Two English Courses (B2 and C1) will be delivered by an external teacher appointed by EDiSU and were expected to start on Wednesday the 22nd of November. We have now received a different communication from EDiSU stating that Courses will start next week and will involve lessons on two different days of the week. This schedule is incompatible with the programme of supervisions and the College will contact EDiSU once more, solve the issue and confirm final arrangements to students. The English classes will take place in Seminar Room 2 (level 2, North wing) at 5.00 pm (B2 class) and 7.00 pm (C1 class).
The French Course, delivered by College member Ingrid R Ouandji, will start on Wednesday the 22nd of November at 5.00 pm in Seminar Room 3 (level 3, North wing).
The German Course, delivered by College member Claudio Neidhoefer, will start on Wednesday the 22nd of November at 8.00 pm in Seminar Room 3 (level 3, North wing).
Students enrolled in the English Courses have been informed of their class assignment. Students who have enrolled in the French and German Courses will be contacted shortly by Ingrid R Ouandji and Claudio Neidhoefer respectively in order to arrange their entrance test.
Supervisions 2017/18
Monday the 20th of November will see the start of the College supervisions (also known as tutorials). College supervisions are a crucial asset for the academic development and career of the students of Volta. College has put forward proposals for 16 supervisions, of which the majority are certain, a few are potential and will depend on the enrolment of external students, as the number of Volta students in those groups is limited. The involvement of external students in College teaching is a policy that the University government has strongly advocated and that Collegio Volta is keen to implement.
Supervisors will contact their students' groups shortly in order to seek confirmation of attendance and extend enrolment where necessary.
The bulk of Volta supervisions are directed to Maths, Physics and Chemistry subjects (10 supervisions in total). The other ones target Biochemistry and Physiology. The majority of this teaching is directed to yr 1 students, the remainder targets selected yr 2 courses and subjects.
Students enrolled in courses for which supervisions are offered have a duty to attend at least one supervision (24 hours in total) during the year although College expects that, where students have the opportunity to attend more than one supervision, they will take full advantage of this. Students need to fill in their personal diary with details of the supervisions attended and the list of topics. These are available from the supervisors and on the College web pages (Undergraduate Teaching).
A brief list of the supervisions offered by Volta in 2017/18 is on display on the noticeboard near the College office. The full list of College supervisions for the year 2017/18 can be found here. An email will be sent shortly to all students attending courses for which supervisions are offered.
Study Plans
College invites its students enrolled in undergraduate courses and in MSc courses (so called lauree magistrali) to submit their study plan for 2017/18. Study plans are very important tools that enable College to check if students move in the right direction or otherwise (see Fig).
Freshers (students who joined College in September/October 2017)
These students need to pdf print their study plan from Esse 3 in order to enable College to enter the data in the College database and submit to the College Director (see an example of a study plan here). They also need to indicate which exams they are planning to enter in February 2018. The College Director will meet freshers individually in order to discuss and review each study plan.
Students who have been in residence for one or more years
These students also need to submit their study plan which will provide a career update and confirmation of the extra credits gained in September. They also need to indicate which exams they plan to enter in February 2018.
French Course
Collegio Volta is offering a single level German Course aimed at DELF B1/DELF B2, the level required required for access to Erasmus scheme. Interested students are requested to confirm their their enrolment by writing to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., a College student and a native French speaker who will teach the Course, before the 27th of October. The Course will be free (no enrolment fee).
IR Ouandji will arrange online placement tests for the students enrolling in the Course during the 1st week of November. The Course will involve 2 hours of teaching a week either on Monday or Wednesday for 20 weeks (40 hours in total). It will start in week beginning on Monday the 13th of November and will run until the end of April with breaks for: Christmas (2 weeks), February examinations (3 weeks) and Easter (1 week).
Further information about French teaching can be found on the College web page in the relevant page of the section on Language Studies and in this further page of the section on College Courses.
German Course
Collegio Volta is offering a single level German Course aimed at DSH1/DSH2 level, the level required required for access to Erasmus scheme. Interested students are requested to confirm their willingness to enrol by writing to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., a College student and a native German speaker who will teach the Course, before the 27th of October. The Course will be free (no enrolment fee).
C Neiddhöfer will arrange online placement tests for the students enrolling in the Course during the 1st week of November. The Course will involve 2 hours of teaching a week either on Monday or Wednesday for 20 weeks (40 hours in total). It will start in week beginning on Monday the 13th of November and will run until the end of April with breaks for: Christmas (2 weeks), February examinations (3 weeks) and Easter (1 week).
Further information about German teaching can be found on the College web page in the relevant page of the section on Language Studies and in the further page of the section on College Courses.
English Courses
Collegio Volta is inviting students interested in the College English Courses to state their interest by sending an email to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before Friday the 27th of October. The English Courses are supported by EDiSU, are run by qualified teachers provided by a local organisation and, for the first time, they will be free (no enrolment fee).
The College will offer Courses at two levels in the B1, B2 and C1 range and the final choice of the levels taught will depend on the results of placement tests of the students enrolled. Placement tests are paid by College and will be carried out in the 1st week of November on the University of Oxford language server. College does not offer C2 English because a C1 level is sufficient for gaining access to postgraduate Courses at top British and US Universities and for securing competitive graduate positions in the job market.
The Courses will involve 2 hours of teaching a week either on Monday or Wednesday for 20 weeks (40 hours in total). They will start in week beginning on Monday the 13th of November and will run until the end of April with breaks for: Christmas (2 weeks), February examinations (3 weeks) and Easter (1 week).
Further information about German teaching can be found on the College web page in the relevant page of the section on Language Studies and in this further page of the section on College Courses.
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Medical Simulation
Collegio Volta is pleased to welcome Stefano Perlini, University lecturer in Clinical Medicine, and support his innovative teaching in medical simulation.
Medical simulation has a growing role in the medical curriculum and is now widely utilised at many Medical Schools worldwide. Prof S Perlini has pioneered this approach in Italy several years ago introducing classes in both the Golgi and Harvey Medical Courses of the University of Pavia. In 2015/16 and 2016/17 held his medical simulation classes at Collegio L Valla. From 2017/18 the classes will be held at Volta where S Perlini relies on the enthusiastic support of the large number of medical undergraduates studying at Volta and the direct involvement of several Volta undergraduates , ie P Balagna and H Alhellani, in the teaching.
Rules & Regulations
A few students have asked clarification of certain College Rules & Regulations. The majority of these were discussed in a general meeting on October 3rd but College accepts the fact that a number of freshers joined Volta at a later date, hence this notice.
The College website contains a full section of College Rules & Regulations, accessible from the home page (the first item under the menu College at the bottom of the page, and detailing general rules as well as specific ones (house, libraries, IT, Health & Safety, etc). All students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with this material, specially so the students who could not attend the meeting on October 3rd.
A popular query concerns parties. This is covered of course in the above documents. As a rule of thumb College requires advance notice on a form available from the College Office and the Porter's Desk specifying date, start and finish time, number of participants, music or not and names and surname of any external guest (the latter is a Health & Safety requirement). The student(s) proposing the party takes on him/herself financial responsibility for any damage that might result to College property and additional responsibility for room cleaning and safe disposal of extra waste generated by the party. Parties, as defined by College Rules & Regulations involve in execss of 10 participants and may not be held in students' flats (on Health & Safety grounds). They are typically held in so-called breakfast rooms or other communal rooms.
Coding
The College offers a 12 hours Course on computer coding. Volta subscribes to the view that a basic understanding of computer coding is required not only by coding professionals but by a large number of people whose work would considerably benefit from the implementation of some original code and that a basic knowledge of computer coding ought to be a component of the essential computer literacy of every University student. The College therefore encourages all/most of its students to attend. Extra details of the Course can be found at this page and the poster of the Course can be downloaded here.
Course outline
The web programming course aims to show to the students that programming and creating webapps is not as complex as it may seem. After the completion of the course every student will have built a simple yet functional web application: a personal blog powered by Python programming language by means of the Model-View-Control web framework Django. The project will be worked out by bits and pieces in an interactive approach: students code on their own laptops during the lesson, where a coaching approach is taken by the lecturer. The topics span from basic programming, design patterns and simple algorithms, up to general utilities and concepts as: HTTP requests, HTML and CSS markup, regular expressions, the Model View Control paradigm and database usage.
Course schedule
The Course will be offered by MSc graduate Pavlo Burda in seminar room 3 (North wing) on the dates and times listed below.
(1) Bootstrap: Python e Django (installation and use). Thursday Oct 19 6.00-8.00 pm
(2) Object-oriented programming: a database-driven approach. Tuesday Oct 24 6.00-8.00 pm
(3) Design Pattern: Model-View-Controller architecture. Thursday Oct 26 6.00-8.00 pm
(4) Template with HTML e CSS. Tuesday Oct 31 6.00-8.00 pm
(5) Extension and development. Thursday Nov 2 6.00-8.00 pm
(6) Project sum-up. Tuesday Nov 7 6.00-8.00 pm
LaTeX
The College offers a 12 hours Course on LaTeX, a powerful - and free - application currently used by a large number of students for writing their dissertation, research papers, reports, books, etc. More details about the Course can be found at this page and the poster of the Course can be downloaded here.
Course outline
The LateX course aims to introduce the students to the de facto standard document formatting and typesetting system in academia, and enable them to use it as quickly as possible to deliver high quality technical and scientific documentation. The covered topics start with a presentation of the principles behind LateX approach: the separation of presentation and content. Then a set of essential rules and tools are illustrated and applied in class exercises to produce a typical scientific article. At the end, more advanced, but very convenient instruments and methods are proposed: tables, graphics and presentations. Every lesson will be based on "you see, you do" principle, where students apply on their machines what has just been showed to them.The LateX compiler and renderer to be used through the course is the online service OverLeaf (https://overleaf.com/about) and the entire course will be substantially based on the MIT-licensed short course of Dr Lees-Miller University of Bristol (https://github.com/sgolovan/latex-course).
Course schedule
The Course will be offered by MSc graduate Pavlo Burda in seminar room 3 (North wing) on the dates and times listed below.
(1) Introduction - Contents (with equations). Wednesday Oct 18 6.00-8.00 pm
(2). Document structure(s). Monday Oct 23 6.00-8.00 pm
(3). Tables, figures and references. Wednesday Oct 25 6.00-8.00 pm
(4). Presentations. Monday Oct 30 6.00-8.00 pm
(5). Graphics and illustrations. Monday Nov 6 6.00-8.00 pm
(6). Practical exercise. Wednesday Nov 8 6.00-8.00 pm
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