About the University of Perugia: Shelly and I are working with a group at the Ingegneria (DIEI) which is not at the downtown campus but rather in Santa Lucia which is on the outskirts. We have found a walking route there which takes about 40 minutes each way (uphill on the way home, so a bit longer).
Shelly will start teaching a PhD course there this week on proof techniques and logic, so that will keep her out of trouble. Late this week I'm off to Barbados for a workshop and in March we will both go to Bertinoro for a workshop. So, work is going well -- the group we are visiting here (Beppe, Emilio, Walter and Carla) is very accommodating and productive. And hard-working. They are now between semesters and don't have serious teaching duties again until late February. We go for lunch together every day to a local pannini bar and usually manage a quick coffee or 2 during the day. The Italian system is quite different from what we are used to, for example on a recent first year programming final exam, only 20% of the class passed -- and that is considered normal! There are 2 reasons for such a low success rate: students are allowed to retake final exams up to 6 times, and there are no entrance requirements allowed for engineering -- any student has the right to try to succeed. Tuition is very low and there is high unemployment for young people, so there are lots of students. There are also deep cuts happening to universities and research grants.
 |
| the cappuccino brothers |
 |
| probably not what you are thinking.... |
 |
| between DIEI and the coffee shop |
 |
| DIEI |
1 in 5 pass? Now THAT sounds like the Math and CS I remember!
ReplyDelete