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. 

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 attendance recording. Depending on the student's attendance, there may be different assessment methods for attending and non-attending students: when attendance is a decisive element for assigning the “attending” status to a student, the only method available for recording participation is through Attendance, the University online procedure.
When courses include Attendance recording, students must record their attendance at lectures in accordance with the principles of the University Honor Code.

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) and Transformative Sustainability (TS) in the 2022-2023 academic year shall be assigned respectively class groups 25 and 26 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 (see chapter 3 Foreign Language);
• 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 25 August - 3 September 2022). 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.

Considering that the educational activities are offered across lots of MSc programs, it is not possible to exclude overlapping between lectures of preparatory courses, because they are more numerous than the time slots available.

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 2022-2023 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, except for the Italian preparatory course which is automatically assigned by the Language Center depending on the student's mother tongue.

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 Blackboard).

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 2022-2023 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 2022-2023 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:

• Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 September 2022 (Introduction to Cyber Risk seminar) ;

2nd semester:

• Wednesday 8 February 2023 to Friday 12 May 2023.

Foreign language courses start on 6 February 2023; remote teaching is guaranteed for classes on 6-7 February, to avoid overlapping with PoliMi courses.

SECOND YEAR

1st semester:

• Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 September 2022: Cyber Forum Bocconi; from 6 to 9 September 2022: Ethic seminar at PoliMi
• Monday 12 September to Tuesday 6 December 2022.

Foreign language courses start on 10 September 2022; remote teaching is guaranteed for classes on 5-10 September, to avoid overlapping with the Bocconi Cyber Forum and PoliMi courses.

2nd semester:

• From Monday 13 February to Saturday 18 February 2023 (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.

For students enrolled in the first year in the Transformative Sustainability MSc in the 2022-2023 a.y., teaching activities in the 1st semester will be held at Bocconi; inversely, teaching activities in the 2nd semester will be held at PoliMi, except of  lectures of foreign languages.

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

FIRST YEAR

1st semester:

• from Monday 5 September 2022 to Tuesday 6 December 2022.

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.

With reference to the teaching activities held in Bocconi, lectures for all courses and all degree programs are suspended:

• Friday 14 October 2022 and Saturday 15 October 2022;
• Friday 31 March 2023 and Saturday 1st April 2023.

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

• 1st semester: from Monday 17 October 2022 to Saturday 22 October 2022;
• 2nd semester: from Monday 13 March 2023 to Saturday 18 March 2023.

Teaching activities are also suspended on the following days:

• Monday 31 October 2022 and Tuesday 1st November 2022;
• from Saturday 8 April 2023 to Saturday 15 April 2023;
• Monday 24 April 2023 and Tuesday 25 April 2023;
• Monday 1st May 2023.

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 2022-2023 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, based on listening and direct active input from students.

This includes:

• feedback from "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. The role of class representatives is also to create an environment which favors successful interaction between faculty and students. For this purpose, the Course Director is invited to periodically meet with class representatives, 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 them 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 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 the study path 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 each teaching semester, 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”). This is the most important tool for students to express their opinions on how the various courses are organized and conducted. The evaluations provided, whose anonymity is protected, are essential for identifying which aspects should be corrected or improved for future editions of the courses in order to ensure increasingly higher quality standards. Questionnaires are completed electronically through the use of an online procedure, and can be accessed through a link on the yoU@B student diary and on the BlackBoard platform.
  
  3. The overall university experience questionnaire: addressed to all the students who are about to complete their studies. It aims to gather information on students' global impressions regarding their study experience and the program attended, as well as the quality and effectiveness of the facilities at the two Universities 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 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 Politecnico, please consult the PoliMi website.