Polytechnic University of Milan
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Politecnico di Milano |
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| Established | 1863 |
| Type | State-supported |
| Rector | Prof. Giulio Ballio |
| Staff | 1,229 |
| Students | ca 42,000 |
| Location | Milan, Como, Lecco, Mantova, Cremona, Piacenza, Italy |
| Sports teams | |
| Website | www.polimi.it/ |
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. The university is ranked as the 63rd technical university in the world by Times [1].
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[edit] History
Founded on November 29, 1863, Politecnico di Milano is the oldest 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 received 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, was 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. In 2000, the politecnico's faculty of design was created with new courses in under graduate and post-graduate programs of graphic & visual, fashion and interior design along with the already existent industrial design.
[edit] Institution
The University is distributed over 7 main campuses across the Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions:
- Campus Leonardo, located in piazza Leonardo da Vinci in Milan and active since 1927; from then on the campus expanded and today it comprises various smaller campuses close to each other (campus Leonardo, campus Bonardi, campus Clericetti, campus Mancinelli and campus Colombo).
- Campus Bovisa, located in the Bovisa district in Milan and active since 1989; campus Bovisa is today composed by campus Durando, opened in 1994, and campus La Masa, inaugurated in 1997.
- Campus Como, located in the city of Como and active since 1987.
- Campus Cremona, located in the city of Cremona and active since 1987.
- Campus Lecco, located in the city of Lecco and active since 1997.
- Campus Mantova, located in the city of Mantova and active since 1999; the seat is the former Orphanage of the Mercy, designed in the late XVIII century by the architect Paolo Pozzo.
- Campus Piacenza, located in the city of Piacenza and active since 1997; the seat is the Barracks of the Snow, a building of the XVI century.
[edit] Admission
The admission in the undergraduate course in the Politecnico is bound to an admission test, aimed to verify the starting preparation of every student. The main goal of this test is to point out the lacks of the aspiring students and, in case, to assign them an extra course. Only some courses have a strictly limited number of places, even if the Academic Senate fixes an approximate maximum number of students for every course.
The admission test for Architecture, Design and Construction Engineering faculties is divided in five parts, each about one of the following general subject: Logic and General Knowledge; History; Drawing and Representation; Mathematics and Physics; English Language. The admission test for any Engineering faculty, except Construction Engineering, is divided in four parts, each about one of the following general subject: English Language; Logic, Mathematics and Statistics; Verbal Comprehension; Physics.
Admission to the postgraduate courses in the Politecnico requires an undergraduate degree (national, or international) and a set of requirements specific for each faculty, such as the time spent in obtaining the undergraduate degree or the grade point average scored during the undergraduate course.
The Politecnico also offers courses of study for the title of Dottore di Ricerca (Ph.D.).
[edit] Organization
Politecnico di Milano is organised in 18 departments:
- Architettura e Pianificazione (DIAP) (Architecture and urban planning)
- Bioingegneria (Bioengineering)
- Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica "Giulio Natta" (Chemistry)
- Elettronica e Informazione (DEI) (Electronics and Information technology)
- Elettrotecnica (Electrical science)
- Energetica (Energetic studies)
- Fisica (Physics)
- Industrial Design, Arti, Comunicazione e Moda (INDACO) (Industrial and fashion design and communications)
- Ingegneria Aerospaziale (Aerospace engineering)
- Ingegneria Gestionale (DIG) (Management, economics and industrial engineering)
- Ingegneria Idraulica, Ambientale, Infrastrutture Viarie, Rilevamento (DIIAR) (Hydraulics, Environment)
- Ingegneria Nucleare (Nuclear engineering)
- Ingegneria Strutturale (DIS) (Structural engineering)
- Matematica "Francesco Brioschi" (Mathematics)
- Meccanica (Mechanics)
- Progettazione dell’Architettura (Architecture design)
- Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Ambiente Costruito (BEST) (Building Environment)
[edit] Educational Activities
The Politecnico offers 32 first level (Bachelor) degree courses. Among these, there is an on-line course in Computer Engineering, the first on-line academic course in Italy. It is fully equivalent to the traditional Computer Engineering course; in fact all the lessons are explained on the web by the professors of the Politecnico and the final examinations are taken in the campus in Como.
This wide range of different curricula is 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 the 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 as excessive, combined with an already tough environment.
Politecnico entertains several relationships with international projects for student exchange [2], and encourages foreign students by providing many courses in English language. [3]. 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.
[edit] Library System
The library system of the Politecnico counts more than 470.000 records distributed all over the libraries in the campuses. The system is made up of Central Libraries (amongst which the most important ones are the 'Central Engineering Library' and the 'Central Architecture Library') and Teaching Libraries, set up to help students preparing their exams. The titles registered in the library system can be consulted through a web search engine called OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue). From autumn 2004, the Politecnico owns a publishing trade-mark, called Polipress, created to publish mainly the researches of the community of the Politecnico. Polipress publishes also the free Politecnico periodical.
[edit] Research
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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 [4].
Many scientists working at the Politecnico di Milano have received awards and recognition by the scientific community: among them, the most famous is undoubtedly 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).
[edit] 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 number of at most 1000 beds (counting also agreements with private institutions), and directly manages a 140-bed hotel for exchange students of the Erasmus programme [5] [6]. Most students from outside the city are either 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. [7] [8]
The campuses Leonardo and Bovisa are covered by a Wi-Fi network. Politecnico's Wi-Fi system is composed by two networks: a non-protected net (SSID: polimi) and a protected one (SSID: internet). With polimi, students can freely log into a stripped-down network, getting the access to an institutional website where they can request a certificate to access the internet network. In fact, the access to the latter is regulated by the WPA protocol, using an EAP authentication and TKIP cryptography. The internet network grants access to all of Politecnico's private network (all the LANs of all campuses), and to the Internet in limited form (the HTTP(S) and FTP services only). The WiFi service is still work in progress: most notably, the campus area is covered only partially by this service.[9]
[edit] Organizations
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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.
Inside the Leonardo campus students can find the seat of the Educafe. Educafe has been conceived as an innovative space inside the Politecnico, where students can meet up or freely surf the net. Educafe, despite its very limited dimension, is also a meeting center, where cultural events are organized every months.
Among the student organizations:
- ESN (European Student Network) a non-profit organization, gathering exchange student and encouraging exchange project.
- Euroavia an organization founded to gather aerospace students of the Politecnico and make easy to contact other aerospace students in Europe.
- Teatro delle Biglie (English translation: 'Theatre of the Marbles') an independent non-profit organization, born as theatre association.
- Poul (Politecnico Open Unix Labs) a student association composed by student interested in *nix systems.
[edit] 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 in student elections is, however, generally low, typically below 15%, as a result of generally a low interest in the issues and the low influence of elected students on the academy's decisions. Results of the last elections are available on-line.
[edit] Criticism
The Politecnico is widely known for being a selective and difficult university, and as such, students often drop out early or take a longer time than normal 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 for. Fortunately, only a minority of professors abuse their power, but it is still likely that students will encounter a few dubiously qualified teachers or assistants over the 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 a 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.
[edit] Trivia
- The logo of Politecnico di Milano is a sketch 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 II. 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 features a stylish red letter A built in steel, students of Engineering jokingly suggested they had had their own letter all along, indicating the smokestack in the yard of the Hydraulics department, that represents the letter I (as in Ingegneria, Italian for Engineering).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- (English) Politecnico di Milano Website
- (Italian) Brief history of the Politecnico.
- (Italian) Studentipolitecnico.it - Politecnico Students Community.
