GUIDES TO THE UNIVERSITY

The information in this Guide refers only to activities and regulations in place at Bocconi University. For activities and regulations in place at Politecnico, please check the PoliMi widget available in the yoU@B Diary.

The education model adopted by the Master of Science programs is characterized by teaching activities to encourage interaction between students and faculty.
In addition to traditional lectures, activities include case studies, practical exercises for which students are asked to prepare beforehand and active class participation. Faculty can also assign individual and/or groups assignments, if necessary, assisted by a tutor.

For courses included in the degree program, one credit point corresponds to 8 hours of lectures.

A maximum of 2 hours of the total hours of a compulsory course (8) can be organized dividing the class group into 2 smaller groups.

Some courses also provide online multimedia support to class teaching. These courses are specified in the annual teaching activities program. For some elective courses  web casting and e-learning projects have been launched.
The web casting project involves video recording of the lectures of a course, so that they can be broadcast in streaming format via internet. This learning method cannot be chosen by the students who must only express or refuse their authorization to be video recorded.

The e-learning project supports traditional learning methods and creates a collaborative learning environment. Tutors are involved in the preparation of websites and the development of course specific software.The e-learning project allows students who are unable to attend lectures held with traditional methods (because of internships or in programs abroad) to follow the lectures in distance learning.

Attendance at lectures is highly recommended since it complies with the proposed educational model which is designed to favor gradual learning, active student participation and in-class interaction between students and teachers.
Some courses may include online attendance recording (Attendance). Depending on the student's attendance, there may be different assessment methods for attending and non-attending students.

As for the technologic innovations of learning activities, using personal computers may be a compulsory condition for attending the lectures of some courses, therefore students should be equipped with a personal laptop PC.

Teaching activities are organized into class groups. Students enrolled in the Master of Science in Cyber Risk Strategy and Governance” (CYBER) in the 2020-2021 academic year shall be assigned class group 25 for the compulsory courses in the degree program requirements in the first year.
For educational activities, students are assigned to a class group as follows:

• for compulsory courses, class groups are assigned before lectures begin. Each class group is assigned a specific classroom for the majority of courses. All students belonging to the same class group attend the lectures in the same classroom and have the same faculty. To facilitate educational activities planning (class group numbers and classroom capacity), students cannot change their assigned class group;

• for foreign languages the class group is assigned when the choice is made through Punto Blu;

• for electives, the class group is assigned when choosing the elective courses upon enrollment in the academic year.

Preparatory courses are offered before the start of first-year lectures (in the period 24 August - 5 September 2020). These courses are an important tool which helps students to face the subjects characterizing the first year of the Master of Science program.

As Master of Science programs are more specific than the Bachelor of Science programs and as the composition of class groups is heterogeneous, attendance is strongly recommended because they help all students enrolled take on the work involved in the university experience.

The course profiles of Master of Science programs have therefore been created taking the basic knowledge of the undergraduate programs acquired and known for granted. There is no exam at the completion of these courses.

Students do not need to sign up for these courses. Each student is assigned an attending class group that may be different from the group assigned for other courses. This can be viewed in the class timetable in the yoU@B Diary.

The class timetable and the class group are available in the yoU@B Diary. The course profiles are published on-line at www.unibocconi.eu/courses.

For students duly enrolled in the first year of a program in the 2020-2021 academic year, preparatory courses for all curricular languages are available.
Curricular language courses include information in the specific area of economics. Therefore, a suitable initial level is required in order for attendance in curricular courses during the semester after the preparatory courses to be beneficial and effective.Attendance is strongly recommended.

The following courses are offered in the 1st semester, preparatory courses for French, Italian, Spanish and German at the A1/A2 level.

To attend these preparatory courses, students must sign up for class groups online via the yoU@B Student Diary.
Applications will be accepted until enrollment capacity is reached (a maximum of 100 applicants) on a first-come, first-served basis.

Class groups will be started only if there are enough applicants.
There is no exam at the completion of these courses.

Course profiles for preparatory courses are available online (yoU@B and BBoard).

The first year class timetable
The Bocconi class timetable has been planned so that educational activities connected to first-year compulsory courses are mainly concentrated in either the morning or the afternoon, in order to make it easier for students to dedicate the other part of the day to individual study.

The timetable is structured to provide specific time slots, different in each semester. These time slots are reserved for specific types of activities (compulsory courses, languages). Thus, class timetable clashes between compulsory courses, electives and languages are avoided.

Lectures that require groups may be organized at times that are different from those planned for normal lectures.

The second year class timetable
In the second year, students complete their study plan by selecting elective courses, in compliance with the rules defined for your Master of Science program, which will be described in more detail below.
In general, it is not always possible to exclude any course overlapping between lectures of other courses.

Students are recommended to check the class timetable of elective courses before choosing the courses to be included in the study plan.
The second year class timetable for Bocconi also includes time slots for languages.

In general, for both years of MSc programs there are no teaching activities during the lunch break on Fridays, both in the first and second semester, as it is reserved for student group activities.
The general class timetable and any changes are published on the http://agenda.unibocconi.it/ Student Diary and on the University's website at www.unibocconi.eu/classtimetable.
After initial enrollment and the enrollment in the academic year, students can view and print their personalized class timetable via the yoU@B student Diary.
Teaching activities held by Bocconi University are divided into 2 semesters each academic year.

For students enrolled in the first year in the Cyber MSc in the 2020-2021 a.y., teaching activities in the 1st semester will be held at Politecnico di Milano after lectures for the seminar Introduction to Cyber Risk have been completed at Bocconi. Inversely, teaching activities in the 2nd semester will be held at Bocconi after lectures for the seminar Social Engineering have been completed at PoliMi.

For students enrolled in the second year in the Cyber MSc in the 2020-2021 a.y., teaching activities in the 1st semester will be held at Bocconi after lectures for the Ethics Seminar have been completed at PoliMi. Inversely, teaching activities in the 2nd semester will be held at PoliMi after lectures for the Behavioural Skills Seminar have been completed at Bocconi.

In particular, teaching held by Bocconi University will take place during the following periods:

FIRST YEAR

1st semester:

• Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 September 2020 (Introduction to Cyber Risk seminar) ;

2nd semester:

• Monday 8 February 2021 to Saturday 8 May 2021.

Foreign language courses start on 4 February; remote teaching is guaranteed for classes on 4-6 February, to avoid overlapping with PoliMi courses.

SECOND YEAR

1st semester:

• Tuesday 8 September 2020: Cyber Forum Bocconi;
• Monday 14 September to Saturady 5 December 2020.

Foreign language courses start on 7 September; remote teaching is guaranteed for classes on 7-11 February, to avoid overlapping with the Bocconi Cyber Forum and PoliMi courses.

2nd semester:

• Monday 15 February to Saturday 20 February 2021 (Behavioural Skills Seminar)

For details on the dates during which teaching activities will be held at Politecnico di Milano, see the ‘PoliMi’ widget available in the yoU@B diary.

On the graduation days listed below, lectures for all courses and all degree programs (Bachelor of Science, MSc and Integrated Master of Arts in Giurisprudenza [Law]) are suspended:

• Friday 16 October 2020 and Saturday 17 October 2020;
• Wednesday 7 April 2021, Thursday 8 April 2021, Friday 9 April 2021.

Teaching activities are also suspended in the periods below for all courses, due to the exam sessions for partial exams:

• 1st semester: from Monday 19 October 2020 to Saturday 24 October 2020;
• 2nd semester: from Monday 15 March 2021 to Saturday 20 March 2021.

Teaching activities are also suspended on the following days:

• From Monday 5 April 2021 to Tuesday 6 April 2021;
• Saturday 1 May 2021.

All courses have a Course Director who writes the course program, organizes assessment methods and textbooks, and is responsible for ensuring consistency of both teaching and assessment of his/her class groups. The Course Director must also organize the teaching staff of all class groups of his/her course. He/she is responsible for the individual result of course evaluation questionnaires for each class groups in the course.

Some courses offer tutor assistance. Tutoring includes support to the faculty and to student teams working on case studies, projects, in-class practical exercises, and management of the online community. It may also involve lectures that require the use of software.

For information about courses and teaching assistantship (teaching assistants), the following document can be consulted:

• List of teaching assistants 2020-2021 academic year (available on September)

Information regarding the 1st semester will be available by the end of September and information regarding courses offered in the 2nd semester will be available by the end of February.

During office hours, students have the opportunity to consult with teachers. 
This gives students the chance to seek further explanations or clarifications of the topics that were not fully understood during lectures.
The office hours timetable for Bocconi professors can also be found in the yoU@B student Diary and/or on the website at www.unibocconi.eu/studentconsultationhours.
If decided by the professor, the office hours may be carried out only upon reservation by the student: in this case the reservation can be made exclusively through the yoU@B student Diary.
At the professor’s discretion, students are invited to check in advance the office hours methods.

For many years, Bocconi has used a detailed evaluation system designed to monitor the educational quality of each course, with direct active input from students.
This includes:

• checks carried out through "class group representatives", appointed to represent the entire class group by liaising with the faculty, acting as their spokesperson with the task of presenting their observations and suggestions and outlining any difficulties that may arise during lectures. For evaluation purposes, the role of class representatives is to create an environment which favors more interaction between faculty and students. As a matter of fact, the Course Director is invited to periodically meet with these students, and at the end of the semester, discuss with them the general outcome of teaching. Also, upon his/her own initiative, the Program Director can meet class representatives in order to check their opinions on the methods of the different courses in which the educational path is structured. Further details on the class representatives and student representatives can generally be found on the website at http://www.unibocconi.eu/ in "Student Representation";
• gathering opinions through questionnaires including the following periodic surveys taking place in specific periods of the student’s academic career and, as regards semesters of study at Bocconi, includes:

1. Mid-semester evaluation of teaching (so called "mid-term evaluation") carried out voluntarily by students at the faculty member’s request, to gather information on the teaching quality and course progress and shedding light on any problems in a timely fashion, allowing corrective action to be implemented before the end of the course;
2. End-semester evaluation of teaching carried out close to the end of lectures; it involves all curricular courses and all students enrolled in them (in case of no attendance or attendance to only a few lectures, students must fill out an ad hoc questionnaire reserved to “non-attending students”). Questionnaires are completed electronically through the use of an online procedure, and can be accessed through a link on the yoU@B student diary (via tablet, PC or smartphone).
3. The overall university experience questionnaire is given  systematically to all the students who are about to complete their studies (when making their graduation reservation). It aims to gather information on students' global impressions regarding the quality and effectiveness of the program attended, their study experience and some support services used at Bocconi and at PoliMi (e.g. international mobility, Career Service, Funding and Housing). These questionnaires are also completed electronically through the use of an online procedure and are compulsory, as they are part of the requirements for completing the procedure for registering for a graduation session. The online questionnaire procedure can be completed via tablet, PC or smartphone and can be accessed for a specified period of time through a special link communicated to the student when registering for the graduation session.
   For details about the specific methods of gathering student opinions used by Politecinico, please consult the PoliMi website.