Dear student, soft skills are an essential tool for personal growth and success in professional life. PMSS (Project Management and Soft Skills) offers you the opportunity to leave your confort zone, open your mind to new challenges, learn the fundamentals of relational skills like team working, leadership, public speaking.

If you are interested to attend, first read information here. (Please note that the course is intended for students of any degree, not only engineering, and is normally attended by students from all other Schools like Law, Science, Language, Economy, Medicine, …).

The course accepts a limited number of students and it is normally overbooked. To book it, you have to include it in your study plan through the usual UniBO procedures. There are many students willing to attend it and they are not accepted. Therefore, we are soliciting students who have included it in their study plan, in case they decide not to attend, to cancel PMSS from their list of courses, as soon as they can (which depends on the time window opened by their Degree). The day when a position is released, it is available for some other student.  This might in principle happen every single day until start of the course. The instructor has no visibility on this process.

On the other hand, following University rules, exchanged students are accepted ex quota, that is, without limitations on their number.

The course will start on February 21, 2025, and finish on the first week of June. Classes are given at the School of Engineering, viale Risorgimento 2, Bologna, every Friday afternoon (3.30 pm – 7 pm), in room 2.3.

The course fosters interactivity among students and with the instructor: during the classes, group work is organised, discussions are held, forms, tests and questionnaires are filled, speeches in front of all other students are made. Moreover, each lecture ends with some (simple) homework to be made by the following Wednesday. For these reasons, it makes no sense to include it in your study plan if you can not attend and participate actively to the classes.

Attendance is required. If you will attend and participate actively to at least 70% of the classes, you will i) undergo a simplified exam, and ii) receive at the end of the course a letter describing your strenghts and competencies, which you can use for any purpose (e.g. job applications). If you can not attend, I strongly invite you NOT to include the course in your study plan: soft skills can not be read or taught, they need to be lived.

The exam requires that you deliver some documents before the exam date, pass a written test and make an oral presentation. The documents can be delivered the day before the oral exam; they will be checked on the day of the exam before the oral starts. However, students attending regularly will be invited to submit their deliveries by given deadlines in April and May; they will be checked by the end of the course.

If you wish to know more (and find traces from the previous Academic Year), please check on www.softskills4success.org. For any questions (except for admission: see above), do not hesitate to contact me.

Bear in mind: your future success depends on you.

Roberto Verdone