«The example and support of other Nuovine convinced me to leave in the first semester of my last year. I would have done the experimental part of my thesis abroad!»
In 2008, from Dervio, Beatrice arrived with her scientific high school diploma in Pavia to enroll in Chemical Sciences. A career of studies as rapid as it is characterized by tenacity: three-year degree with honors (in the summer session) is the first result of three years in the College in which she was elected Dean of Students and appointed among the managers of the library service, as well as tutor for freshmen. In 2010, with the College and thanks to a contribution from the Cariplo Foundation, she was selected for a study mission to Shanghai on the occasion of the Expo. With her, two other classmates from Medicine, and a group of students from the Conference of University Colleges of Merit. Even the period of her specialist degree saw her busy on several fronts...
Among the first challenges
A month before discussing the thesis with Professor Licchelli, Beatrice is fervently involved, together with her other classmates, in the Women's Education Worldwide meeting promoted by the College for female students of the international network. She helps organize and gives a presentation about her experience in Shanghai. In the meantime, she plans her specialist degree years: she finishes the study plan exams in a single academic year, in order to ensure concentration for the thesis prepared between Pavia, with Professor Spinolo and Denmark, with Professor Pedersen, of Aarhus University. Here she spends the first semester of her senior year, but upon returning to Pavia, Beatrice is ready for another experience. With three other classmates she is selected for the Summer School of Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, thanks to an agreement with the College.
Even before graduating, Beatrice was admitted as a PhD Student (Marie-Curie grant) to the Graduate School for Nanoscience at Aarhus University. And to think that, before leaving for Erasmus: “It took a while to decide to take this little big step, because as often happens I was blocked by an incredible amount of paranoia: would my English be good enough for me to understand? By going on Erasmus, would I have been able to get some credit recognized? In six months wouldn't I miss home too much? What if I missed something important in Italy, while my little world continued to go on without me?” (
"Nuovità", n. 23)
Today
Beatrice leaves her position as a doctoral student and makes another choice: she is selected for an internship in the European Commission, within the “Blue Book Traineeship Scheme” (in communicating the news to the College, she will write: “The College has certainly helped me a lot also in obtaining this position, if only with all the support you have always given me and for always showing that regardless of what we study we can get wherever we want, following our interests and without feeling obliged to follow fixed paths"). Five months in Luxembourg within the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, in the Research and Innovation section, earned her a concrete professional offer in a company in Italy. The beginning of a new adventure. To find out how it continues, look it up here.
Her advice
Leaving, with a lucid viewpoint: "I don't know if it's because everything abroad is so different as to lead us to reevaluate what we had at home, or if a veil of nostalgia doesn't make the various problems of our system better remembered, but despite seeming Denmark a paradise, some things work better in Italy […] perhaps the greater attention paid to practice, although commendable, loses a bit of value if it is not well supported by that sea of theory that we are taught in Italy.” ("Nuovità", n. 23)
