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The Politecnico di Milano (english translation: Polytechnic University of Milan) is the largest technical university in Italy with about 42,000 students. The incumbent rector of the university is professor Giulio Ballio.

History

Being founded on November 29 1863, Politecnico di Milano is the most ancient university in Milan. The original name was Istituto Tecnico Superiore ("Higher Technical Institute"), Francesco Brioschi the leader, and the location was in the very heart of the city ('via Senato') .

In 1865 Architecture, the second main line of study at Politecnico, was introduced. In 1929 the Politecnico moved to piazza Leonardo da Vinci, in the district now known as Città studi, (City of Studies). Politecnico's main facilities are still there today.

In 1954, the first European centre of electronic computation was opened by Gino Cassinis and Ercole Bottani. In 1963 Giulio Natta receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on crystalline polymers, polypropylene in particular. In 1977, the satellite Sirio, jointly developed by Politecnico and other companies, is launched.

During the nineties, the Politecnico began a process of territorial expansion that would have resulted in the opening of its satellite campuses in Lombardy and Emilia Romagna. A university course in industrial design was started in 1993.

Structure

The Politecnico comprises 18 departments in 7 campuses over the Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions. Besides the main site in piazza Leonardo, in Milan the Politecnico has a second large campus located in the Bovisa district, as well as several minor branches (Mancinelli, Lambrate). The other campuses include the cities of Como, Lecco, Cremona, Mantova and Piacenza.

Politecnico di Milano is organised in 18 departments:

Research

The Politecnico di Milano participates to European and international networks of research. In year 2004 alone, about 60 large scale, multi-year international research projects have been initiated or participated by the Politecnico, just in the context of the European Research framework *.

Many scientists working at the Politecnico di Milano received awards and recognition by the scientific community: among them, the most famous is for sure prof. Giulio Natta, the only Italian Nobel laureate for Chemistry to date (1963), who was also the head of the department of industrial chemistry at Politecnico. As of 2005, a number of professors at Politecnico are ACM or IEEE fellows.

The Politecnico participates in associations and consortia for applied research, has offices to assist technological transfers and continuing education for professionals. The university supports the establishment of research spin-offs, and also of high-tech companies during their start-up phase, with a structure named Acceleratore d'Impresa (Start-up Incubator).

Educational Activities

The Politecnico di Milano offers a wide range different curricula, tailored to the needs of its territory (the Lombardy region), which is one of the most developed industrial areas in Europe. The number of students complexively enrolled is approximately 42,000, making the Politecnico di Milano the largest institution in Italy for Engineering, Architecture and Industrial Design.

Courses at Politecnico frequently feature additional parts of practical homework. This is believed to strengthen the knowledge, expertise and ability of students. The workload addendum is eventually perceived excessive, combined with an already tough environment.

Politecnico entertains several relationships with international projects for student exchange and encourages foreign students by providing many courses in English language. [http://www.polimi.it/english/academics/programs_eng.php?id_nav=-271. It participates in the ENTREE network for student exchange among Electrical Engineering colleges in Europe.

The Alta Scuola Politecnica is a national excellence network for joint engineering degrees between the Politecnico di Milano and the Politecnico di Torino.

Student life

Student fees are not especially high at Politecnico, and depend on the income of the family of the student. They range between 150 €/year and 3000 €/year circa. Students with good marks are granted partial or full rebates, in addition to various kinds of scholarships. (PDF file)

Most Italian universities do not offer accommodation for their students on-campus. Politecnico has a limited offer of at most 1,000 beds (counting also agreements with private institutions), and directly manages a 140-beds hotel for exchange students of the Erasmus programme commuters or renting. It is customary for students to share flats in small groups of 3 or 4 people, as rent rates are very expensive in the city. Rents are generally on illegal terms, paid in cash, with no guarantees for the students and no taxes being paid. *" target="_blank" >[http://www.stpauls.it/fc/0543fc/0543fc36.htm

The Politecnico is widely known for being a selective and difficult university, and as such, students often drop early or take a longer time than expected to complete their studies. A problem, shared with other Italian universities, is the presence of "university barons", that is, professors who wield disproportionate amounts of power, and can favour their associates by appointing them to positions they are not qualified to. Fortunately, only a minority of professors abuse of their power, but it is still likely that students will encounter a few dubiously qualified teachers or assistants over the complete course of their studies.

The bureaucracy of the university is often perceived as very stiff, and difficult to deal with. As such, administrative problems are often matter of debate among students. Fortunately, all the common day-to-day tasks can be performed through the Poliself system, either on-line or on terminals located all over the university.

An interesting part of student life are "copy centers". During the 70s, two copy centers were born: CLUP and CUSL (the former from left-wing student groups, the latter with a catholic, conservative student base), as an effort from students to solve their own problems (such as the cost of books and sharing of lecture notes). They have been the only copy centres within Politecnico's premises for a long time, until 2001 when CLUP moved just outside it. They are important just for historical and political reasons, as nowadays there are plenty of alternative facilities in Politecnico's district, Città Studi.

A well known structure is the ISU (a generic term which in Italian university describes additional student facilities such as open libraries, lending of portable PCs, cafeterias and study spaces), dedicated to Luigi Divieti. A legend talks of the "Pianist of ISU", a man who is supposed to be living there since he was born some 50 years ago, and to be a hopelessly old student of the university.

Student politics

Currently, the two main political groups in student's elections are:

  • Lista aperta per il diritto allo studio ("Open list for the right to study"), whose members are also usually part of the catholic movement Comunione e Liberazione. The movement is arguably right-wing, even if it defines itself as "not politically oriented";
  • La Terna Sinistrorsa—Liberi Studenti Democratici ("The left-hand coordinate system—Free Democratic Students"), the left-wing organization; both denominations are puns on the Cartesian three-dimensional coordinate system and LSD.

Other, somewhat smaller groups (both right-wing) are:

  • Terzopolo—Centro Destra Universitario ("Third pole—University centre-right"), connected to the right-wing political coalition Casa delle libertà;
  • Movimento Universitario Padano ("Padanian university movement"), linked to the Lega Nord party (widely accused of xenophobia).

Participation to student elections is however generally low, typically below 10%, as a result of generally low interest for the issue and low influence of elected students on academy's decisions. Results of the last elections are available on-line.

Trivia

  • The logo of Politecnico di Milano is a sketch of a particular of Raffaello's School of Athens.
  • There are 3 universities named Politecnico in Italy (Milan, Turin, Bari), and they are all colloquially known as the Poli among their own students.
  • The university used to be known as Regio Politecnico ("Royal Polytechnic"), but the word Regio was removed when Italy was proclaimed a republic at the end of World War 2. The shadow after the letters REGIO, physically removed from the façade of the main building, is however still visible to this day.
  • After the Architecture faculty received new buildings that sported a stylish red A built with steel beams, students of Engineering jokingly suggested they had had their own letter all along, indicating the smokestack in the yard of the Hydraulics department, that looks like an I (as in Ingegneria, Italian for Engineering).

See also

External links

Education in Milan | Universities and colleges in Italy

دانشگاه پلی‌تکنیک میلان | École polytechnique de Milan | Politecnico di Milano | 米蘭理工大學

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Polytechnic University of Milan".

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