Coding
The College offers a basic Course on Computer Coding open to all students. The Course will take place from October until mid December and will involve 16 hours of teaching arranged in eight sessions of two hours each (one session per week). The College requests that each student at Volta attends a computing Course and, under current arrangements, students can choose between this Course on Computer Coding, a Web Design Course and a LaTeX Course There is no enrolment fee for any of the Course on computing. The poster of the Course can be downeloaded here and a Course flyer can be downloadd here.
With the breathtaking development of computing and their impact on everyday life and work, it is essential that as many people as possible master at least the basic principles and the 'alphabet' of computer coding. The Course will offer an introduction to popular coding languages and tools (C, PHP, JavaScript, SQL), build practical examples throughout and ensure that students wishing to further their learning of computer programming will be offered the necessary tools for doing so.
2017/18
Lecturer
Pavlo Burda
Lectures
01. Code editor, CSS, Django administration and forms
02. Django installation, models, query sets and templates
03. Django urls, views, dynamic data in templates, extensions
04. Internet, installation, command line
05. Introduction to HTML and Phyton. Phyton installation and examples
06. Extending templates, what's next, first Django project
07. Attendance
LaTeX
The College offers a basic Course on Latrex open to all students. The Course will take place from October until mid December and will involve 16 hours of teaching arranged in 8 sessions of two hours each (one session per week). The College requests that each student at Volta attends a computing Course and, under current arrangements, students can choose between this Latex Course, a Web Design Course and a Course on Computer Coding. There is no enrolment fee for any of the Course on computing. The poster of the Course can be downeloaded here and a Course flyer can be downloadd here.
The need to prepare and submit documents, from letter of job applications to complex documents such as dissertations, reports, book chapters, etc is an essential feature of life at University and the majority of graduate careers. LaTeX is the quintessential 'what you see is what you mean' application. It is a high-quality typesetting system, ideal for the production of technical and scientific documents but much valued by scholars and professionals outside science and engineering across the worldwide. The Course will offer students hands-on examples on how to structure documents useing LaTeX with a particular focus on dissertation and reports. The Course is open to all College students, Handaouts of the 2017/18 course are listed below.
2017/18
Lecturer
Pavlo Burda
Lectures
01-02. Introduzione, composizione e matematica
03-04. Documenti strutturati & more
05-06. Documenti Strutturati, Figure, Tabelle e Bibliografia 04. Attendance
Web Design
The College offers a short, introductory Course on Web Design open to all students. The Course will take place from October until mid December and will involve 16 hours of teaching arranged in 8 sessions of two hours each (one session per week). The College requests that each student at Volta attends a computing Course and, under current arrangements, students can choose between this Course on Web Design, a Latex Course and a Course on Computer Coding. There is no enrolment fee for any of the Course on computing. The poster of the Course can be downeloaded here and a Course flyer can be downloadd here. The impact of the web on daily life and work cannot be underestimated and College feels a dury to provide all its students with the ability to create basic web pages and web journals (so-called blogs). The Course will provide an introduction to HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Python, MySQ, will offer practical demonstration on how to create web pages useing WordPress and will offer the advice and tools that interested students require in order to take their learning to a higher level.
2017/18
Lecturer
Antonio Contino
Lectures
01. Introduzione HTML
02. Esercitazione HTML/CSS
03. Introduzione CSS
04. Forms, tabelle, tag avazanti (HTML5) & CSS
05. Javascript
06. CMS e WordPress
07. Attendance
Graduate Careers
The College offers a short Course on Graduate Careers to final year students both undergraduates and postgraduates. The Course will take place in the second or third week of October, will last 6 hours arranged in three sessions of two hours each and attendance is compulsory for final year students. There is no enrolment fee for this Course. The poster of the Course can be downeloaded here and a Course flyer can be downloadd here.
The impact of the latest financial crisis on graduate careers has been noticeable across the whole Europe but has been dramatic in countries sich as Greece, Spain and Italy. The College has a duty to support its newly graduate in their first steps toward employement and the Graduate Careers is key to this effort. The Course will offer: (i) advice on preparation of their cv, (ii) examples and advice on the writing of motivation letters and, (iii) practice and advice on interview techniques. Students who had worked on and possess a personal development plan will be given extra coaching on hte best way to capitalise on this work at the job interview.
Volta has successfully supported a number of applications for postrgraduate training and/or employment outside Italy for several graduates in Medicine and Engineering. The Course on Graduate Careers is the first and valuable step in this process.
Dissertation Writing
The College offers a short Course on how to plan, execute and complete on time a Dissertation. The Course will take place in the second or third week of October, will last 6 hours and attendance is compulsory for final year students. The main focus of the Course will be on dissertation for undergraduate students but final year MSc students may find the Course valuable and are encouraged to attend. The dissertation constitutes the first piece of extended writing that Volta undergraduates face, as essay writing is seldom used as an assessment tool at the University of Pavia (or other Italian Universities). It is also a common and lamentable fact that dissertations often have to be produced in a short period of time and this is not always conducive to the production of a dissertation of the highest quality, The Course offered by the College aims to fills this gap and give students a clear understanding of how a dissertation should be thoroughly planned before any writing commences, how the writing of diffierent parts (Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results and Discussion) should be executed in order to meet the desired objectives in the time available and which software is most apprpriate for best results (text editors, graphics packages, bibliograhy tools, etc). This is a truly valuable Course and an essential took in the hands of all College students.
2017/18
Lecturer
Matteo Turchetti
Lectures
01. Prima di iniziare
02. La stesura passo per passo
03. Discussione e bibliografia
04. Attendance.
Personal Development
Volta offers a short Course in Personal Development Planning. The Course will involve a total of 6 hours of coaching, will take place in the second week of October and full details of will be published in September and discussed in the Annual General Assembly of October 2nd. There is no enrolment fee. All freshers need to attend this Course. Personal Development Plans are an important tool in the hands of University students and serve a dual role: on the one hand they constitute a faithful intellectual diary of a student's journey through his/her Course years. On the other hand they demonstrate a student's abilty to identify areas of strength and weakness and to take measures in order to overcome weaknesses and difficulties. Personal Development Plans have become particularly valuable tools in graduate careers because, unlike a strandard cv, personal development plans can demonstrate the problem-solving ability and the strategic thinking of a candidate.
2017/18
Lecturer
Pietro Balagna
Lectures
01. Tackling your University Course
02. Recognising your strengths and weaknesses
03. Making your personal development plan
Language studies
In the interconnected world of the 21st century, a strong command of languages is essential for a successful graduate career. Undergraduate exchange schemes, such as the EU-funded Erasmus, require a certified - intermediate level - knowledge of the language of the country in which the student wishes to study and there are now strict language requirements for job applications across Europe in professional areas such as medicine. In essence, the career prospects of language-fluent students are greatly enhanced. Volta offers language Courses in English, Fench and German. Students are offered a choice of three English levels (B1, B2 and C1), one level of French (DELF B2) and one level of German (DSH 1). French and German Courses are set at the threeshold for Erasmus placements. The College is exploring the prospect of offering Spanish and Chinese Courses from 2018/19.
North Wing Security
Following several meetings with EDiSU, College has been advised that a number of doors in the North wing be secured with cable straps. The request stems from the need to keep the North wing, and hence College, secure and follows recurrent findings of doors being left open by students or visitors.
Students living and working in the North wing may wish to note the following two points: (i) the action taken in no way compromises Health & Safety measures because, in emergency, the doors can be pushed open without problem or delay, (ii) students breaking the straps without justification will be disciplined as the College needs to enforce rules that have been introduced solely as a result of the failure of the North wing community to comply with security requirements.
Students requiring furthe clarification are welcome to contact the College Office.
Unipv Innovation
Unipv Innovation is returning to College on June 6th at 7.00 pm in the College lecture theatre. Unipv Innovation is a group inspired by F Svelto, Deputy Chancellor for Technology Transfer at the University of Pavia and founded by the University in order to promote business cration and technology transfer within the University of Pavia and more in general a business culture among students and staff of the University and the city of Pavia. The first event run by Unipv Innovation and hosted by College was very lively and successful and this second event is expected to attract similar interest. All College students are warmly invited to attend.
Halving Premature Death
The 2016/17 Volta lecture will be given by Sir Richard Peto of Oxford University in the College lecture theatre at 5.00 pm on May 25th. The lecture will illustrate the social, scientific and medical actions in order to halve the number of premature deaths worldwide in the next two decades, a goal that Sir Richard regards as achievable. Sir Richard is a leading epidemiologist who made groundbreaking contributions to the methodologiy of epidemiological investigations field, including the logrank test and meta-analysis, and their application to the study and control of human disease.
The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here. A synopsis of the lecture can be found here, a brief biography can be found here. Additional information about the lecture and speaker can be found at this page. All College students are expected to attend the annual Volta lecture.
Image courtesy: Nuffield Department of Primary Care, Oxford University
More...
Halving Premature Death
25th May 2017.
Richard Peto, Oxford University
The 2016/17 Volta lecture will be given in the College lecture theatre at 5.00 pm on May 25th by Sir Richard Peto of Oxford University. The will illustrate the social, scientific and medical steps that could halve the number of premature deaths worldwide in the next two decades. Sir Richard, is one of the world foremost epidemiologist. He contributed extensively to the methodological foundations of medical statistics and epidemiology and has applied his methodology to disease and control worldwide. The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here.
Lecture Synopsis
Death in old age is inevitable, but death before old age is not. Except where HIV or political disturbances predominated, mortality rates have been decreasing for decades, helped by sanitation, health care, and social changes. If disease control keeps progressing, then within the next few decades—except where disasters or new epidemics supervene—under-50 mortality and under-70 mortality should fall to less than half of the 2010 global risks of, respectively, 15% and 36%. Non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, stroke, heart disease, and emphysema, cause about 1/4 of all deaths before age 50, plus four-fifths of those at ages 50 to 69, but although the global population is rising, under-70 NCD death rates are falling by about 15% per decade. The most important external factor is smoking, which in 2010 was causing about a quarter of all cancer deaths in the European Union and 30% of all cancer deaths in the US. Options for reducing this and other major cancer causes will be reviewed.
Biographical Sketch.
Richard Peto is Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. His epidemiological studies in Europe, America, India, China and Russia have shown that in many populations the importance of major causes such as tobacco, blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol has been much underestimated. He has also helped widen international perspectives on the main ways of reducing premature death.
Selected publications
[1] R Peto et al. Halving premature death. Science 345:1272 (2014)
[2] R Peto. The big causes of death from noncommunicable disease. Bull World Health Organ 94:413 (2016)
Image
Cemetery Skyline by Estruda (http://estruda.deviantart.com/art/Cemetery-Skyline-398292168)
College Assembly
On the 8th of May at 6.15 pm in the main lecture theatre a general College assembly will take place in order to review the academic results of the 1st semester, clarify the tasks ahead in order to meet EDiSU requirements for confirmation of Collge placement and confrm the relevant dates and oadmap leading to successful confirmation for 2017/18.
A significant body of data will be presented at the assembly and attendance is compulsory for all students of undergraduate and MSc Courses (Lauree Magistrali) wishing to apply for a College placement in the academic year 2017/18 or part of it.
Image courtesy: G Ruperto (http://www.appuntidiviaggi.net/)
Ultimate Hunters
For the second year running the freshers of Collegio Volta have won the inter-collegiate Treasure Hunt, a popular event enacted with passion and enthusiasm and capable of generating massive following and support in every College.
The Volta's freshers who won the 2016/17 (shown in the picture and listed alphabetically) are: Luca Albertazzi, Francesco Cervellera, Benedetta Dalmagioni, Sofia Giorgi, Martina Giudice, Giulia Imberti, Silvia Lamarra, Ruggiero Lattanzio, Chiara Mauri, Alessandro Papa, Riccardo Pilia, Sara Rovertoni, Matteo Turchetti and Giuseppe Termini and have been duly mentored by Giovanni Gruosso and Alfio Marra, also shown in the picture. Another picture shows the celebrations of the team and supporters on the night of the event (29th April).
The College wishes to congratulate its students for this further achievement.
Trinity College Cambridge
Collegio Volta and Trinity College Cambridge have reached an agreement enabling students of either College to exchange academic visits for periods of study or research. Although full details of the scheme will be finalised in the autumn of 2017 and will come into force for the academic year 2017/18, Trinity College is ready to host the first three students of Collegio Volta from the summer of 2017.
Collegio Volta will provide partial support to its students toward travel, accommodation and living expenses in Cambridge and students interested in applying for one of the three placements are invited to contact the College Master in order to discuss further details. The deadline for formal applications is the 30th of April 2017.
Image: The great court of Trinity College. The College, founded in 1536 by Henry VIII included among past members F Bacon, I Newton, GG Byron, J Clerk Maxwell, JJ Thomson, E Rutherford, L Wittgenstein. Members of Trinity have been awarded a total of thirty two Nobel Prizes. .
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