Student life Politecnico di Milano

Student fees at the Politecnico depend on the income of the family of the student. They range between about 150 €/year and 3000 €/year.
Students with good grades are granted partial or full rebates, in addition to various kinds of scholarships. There are many scholarships for international students as part of its recent internationalization program.
Most Italian universities do not offer accommodation for their students on campus. Politecnico has a limited number of approximately 2000 beds available for students. 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.
The campuses Leonardo and Bovisa are covered by a Wi-Fi network, connected and interoperable with the Eduroam service. Most public areas of the campuses are covered by wi-fi.

Living costs and spending habits will differ considerably depending on your individual expectations and needs and, of course, on where you live, so it’s not easy to give advice that is suitable to everyone.
First of all, you will need cash availability for travel, food and other expenses immediately upon arrival in Italy. Consider an amount of about €200-250 cash to cover immediate needs. Carefully plan how and when to exchange your currency to get the best exchange rate.

It is not advisable to bring larger amounts of cash unless you’re sure you’ll need it.  Before your arrival, plan your budget as carefully as possible and try to figure out if you can meet all the expenses, even considering unexpected and emergency costs. Below is a list of possible future expenses you may face.

• Accommodation - €350 - €650 per month
• Food - €150 - €200 per month
• Study costs - €40 per month
• Social life - €80 per month
• Travel costs - €20 per month
• Mobile phones - €20 - €30 per month

These costs are approximate and should be used as a guide only.

Upon your arrival, you’ll need to buy a mobile phone SIM card, choosing between a prepaid or postpaid card. A wide range of traffic plans provided by Italian companies are available, so choose carefully and check the terms and conditions.
If not included in your mobile device, internet access is available in some cafés, malls, hotels, libraries or Politecnico residence halls, and in each Politecnico Campus.

Many places offer free wi-fi access, so if you have a notebook, laptop or phone device, just ask the password for access or use it directly if a free open connection is available.

Alternatively, you can buy an internet key - a USB device that plugs into your laptop. It’s not expensive (between €10 and €30 per month depending on the number of hours/traffic, plus the price of the key) and can be a good solution in the short-term.

Politecnico di Torino, student stats

Stats:

STUDENTS

• 32.000 students (A.Y. 2012/2013)
• 30% women
• 42% students from outside Piedmont
• 16.5% international students

• 4,900 first year students (A.Y. 2012/2013)
• 12% first year international students

• 400 Specialization Master students
• 633 PhD students (A.Y. 2012/2013)

PROGRAMS

• 28 Degree programs (first cycle level - Bachelor)
• 32 MS Degree programs (second cycle level - Master)
• 18 Courses completely in English

• 6 I level Specialization Masters
• 27 II level Specialization Masters

• 24 PhD programs

• 6 Advanced training programs

• 1 Specialization program

GRADUATES
5,371 graduates in 2012

• 2,802 first cycle (Bachelor) level graduates

(average age: 24 years old)

• 2,569 second cycle (Master) level graduates

(average age: 26 years old)
Employment rate of second cycle (Master) students one year after graduation (Almalaurea - def. ISTAT-Workforce): 74.5% (above the national average of 60%) 42% have permanent contracts (above the national average of 34%)

Italian study visa, my story

I was 17 years old and was studying F.sc Pre engineering in Forman Christian College, Lahore. I secured 91% in my first year of high school and was thinking about my future. I applied first in French university for bsc in physics.

I was passionate for mechanical engineering. This all built by reading mechanical structures and watching F1 racing and motogp, well a part of it. 

While my application was under process in French university I applied in LUMS. I enrolled in LUMS' NOP program a year ago. I took their exam too and was waiting for admission reply.

Just while searching other universities I came to know about the Italian universities. The thing most attracted me was the equal rights to foreigners for pursuing higher studies like in France. I came across Politecnico di Torino. I found the undergraduate Mechanical engineering course in English and applied for it.

I wasn't sure where I'll get the admission. In Italy or somewhere else. I had know idea. I spent daily a lot of time considering my options. I was opened minded. Applied in many universities, abroad and Pakistan.

I kept many options and wasn't able to decide, because of lake of information. However I left it all and took admission in NUST. I went to Karachi, Pakistan. Before going to Karachi. I completed the process for Italian study visa.

I secured the admission in Politecnico di Torino. Applied for pre enrollment, attested all my documents and translated them. For DOV I had to provide the final degree, my result of HSSC. I submitted my passport along with my final degree. Due to official reasons our result was late, it came in September. Classes has been started in Politecnico di Torino. I started my studies in NUST, Karachi. 

One day, in the second week of September, I received a call from Italian embassy to submit my final degree. I traveled from Karachi to Islamabad for submission. Days passed by and at the end of November I received another call to collect my passport as soon possible.

That was the time, I bet on my future. I decided to leave, booked a flight, spent my savings  and came to Lahore. Next morning I went to Italian embassy and received my passport with stamped visa. I was sure about my decision and kept it.

As the founder of nation, Muhammad Ali Jinah also said "Stand on your decisions".  I was just 18 years old when I entered Italy. A young mind with lots of dreams.

If I go into details, there were many funny incidents, some harsh and heart breaking. But I kept my decisions and stood by it. As I promised myself. For a young boy, without any guidelines its quite impossible. But only those can make possible, who believe in it.

Study and Work in Italy

Italian education system is quite simple but not worth much in english speaking countries until you attain masters degree or highly talented student in bachelors.

It is quite impossible to study in Italy and make living here. Jobs are few and unemployment is sky high.

The average pay if considered by reviewing most graduates both master and bachelor degree holders is around 1700 euros. So its not enough if you are planning to move out to English speaking countries after 3 or 4 years.

Professional degrees like engineering value a lot in every corner of the world because mostly the experience matters (not always). If you studies in Italy and acquire a job then its better to have some experience of 2 to 3 years. So if you decide to go somewhere else your studies and job experience won't worth less.

Considering a few real life stories of some international students, chances of prosperity are highly increased these days. Foreign investment in the Italian territory is increasing, local companies are being bought out by foreign companies, which will eventually provide a big job pool in coming future. As Italian professionals are leaving Italy, for foreigners  its a great opportunity to fill the gap.

As I wrote earlier, internationalization is increasing year by year to fill the gaps and attract foreign companies and foreign students.


When I first came here in Italy in year 2010, I read an open letter in a newspaper.  The letter was written by a father to his son. In which he wrote about the economic situation of Italy. He also asked him to leave the country after his professional education as this country will not provide him even a single job. But now I'm seeing a change after 5 years of breakage and misery of Italian economy, its finally rising again. Hopefully sooner there will be no one who would like to leave.

Once the economy stands on its feet, means the unemployment rate go below 5% as in year 2007. There will be a lot more job opportunities for both foreign nationals and Italian nationals.

In this time, its still quite uncertain how things will go, but if you see the ground reality you will surely see a change.

Studying in Italy, without scholarship

Studying in Italy is not that hard, as compare to other European countries, living expenses are less. You can decide your budget initially, how much you can spend yearly to study in Italy or in your own country. If you compare the both amounts, you will see a very little difference.

Study in Italy is quite an adventure, if you don't have a scholarships then either you are going to earn that money or you will be dependent on your family. Being dependent on the family is the worst part because you are more than 18 and its the time for you to earn on  your own. The other most basic mistakes we do is that we never make a budget and just keep spending the money. We don't look for a job, as national language is Italian. We have this little thing in mind that to get a job you must speak Italian.

For sure Italian is compulsory but if you look hard you can also find a job where only english language skills are required. With a job, your stay and your study in Italy is more easy.

Everyone can realize that the study is only possible when you have money in your pocket and you don't have to worry about the expenses, so you can concentrate on your studies. If you worry about that you can't manage your stay in Italy or your expenses for study in Italy can't be beard. So kindly don't go to Italy, because you will be wasting your time and money if you had any.
 

Universities Abroad

Searching for a better course is quite difficult because seeing the course description is not enough. It got a lot better when you consult the community of those students who are already studying there or graduated from that institute. It get simple when the institute is quite near you can attend the open days, meet the professors and students.

Online searches sometimes lead to dead end and you find nothing. So you have to make specific searches what course you want to pursue. Maybe the name of the course is not as you expected but the course outline matches what you want to pursue. So your search should be thorough. If you like any Institute study its website thoroughly.

I will like to share my own experience. I searched a lot to study abroad, I found many universities but sometimes a lost interest because of the less information or missing information. I never attended to contact the institute. So its better if you have any question you should contact the admission by email or by phone.

Check thoroughly all the aspects, the course offered, future prospects, tuition fee and the living expenses. If you search deep you will find all this information. Use google translate for contents not in English, many university not provide all the information in English but their own national language. So it better to see also the non english web pages of univeristy.

With time most of the universities created all the pages in english and many still working on it.

Study in Italy: Useful links

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Italy
With the above link you can see the universities, their location the number of students and much more, Wikipedia provides lot of information regarding stats.

http://www.study-in-italy.it/ 
You can see the database of available courses, you can even get the piratical information. It gives you a lot of information when to apply for admissions and pre-enrollment.

http://www.bachelorsportal.eu
You can find here also the courses offered by Italian universities.
You might not find all of them, so its better to go above and see the other link

http://www.italia.it/en/home.html
You can discover Italy by visiting this website and get an overview of Italian culture.

Further more, you can check the regional websites regarding tourism which can be helpful for you when you enter Italy and you can easily manage your accommodation temprarily.
  

DOV for Italian Study Visa

DOV (Declaration of Value) is an assessment of degree, where the worth of degree is evaluated according to the country education system. It is also necessary for the enrollment in the Italian university. Italian university won't enroll you without DOV unless you are an exchange student.

To proceed with DOV, you have to make request to Italian embassy, like in Islamabad and you provide all the attested original documents and their copies with Italian translation. Furthermore the documents and their copies usually 3 should be attested from Foreign ministry and the Central Board. For more clarification you can contact the respected authorities.

You can attain the DOV without final degree, but you can apply on hope certificate. Once you got the final degree your application will proceed to final step. For better information you can consult my post. Soon I will post all these with details so it could be more clearer to you.

Study Visa Italy

Italian study visa is easy to get but only thing required is patience. You completed your intermediate studies then you are good to apply for undergrad admission in Italy. Application for international students are open from January to March each year. The cost of study in Italy is too low as comparing to other European countries. The university fees are low. Living expenses are not much. Even you don't have a scholarship it will cost you around 4500 per annum. If you get any scholarship, like regional or from university it will more than enough in most cases. They will provide you accommodation, pay your tuition fee, and you'll also get a handsome amount for covering your expenses.

Following are the three most simple steps to apply;

1- Apply for admission in Italian Universities
Italian universities allow the students with 12 year of education to enroll for undergrad. There are no restrictions, you can also apply if you are waiting for your result. For that you should apply with hope certificate and consult with university to how to proceed. It is better to apply for more than one university, you can search many courses in english language, then search also for scholarship opportunities.Priorities your options, which city, which university is better for you. You like the university ranking or not. Check about all the necessary things and apply. To see the admission requirements for international students you can see the International admission section of university website. Or you can also find the contact of international admission office of respected university and ask your queries.

2- Apply for pre enrollment in Italian Embassy
After securing the admission you can proceed with pre enrollment. For pre enrollment you have to provide DOV (declaration of value), and your all attested educational degrees and documents. All documents should be translated in Italian language from an authorized translator. First you will fill in the pre enrollment application and then submit your documents for declaration of value. This process takes time depending on the relevant embassy where you submitted. They might not accept your application if you are waiting for your result of final year of school (only in Pakistan). But you can show them the pages of national website of MIUR where its clearly written student waiting for final degree can apply.


3- Apply for study visa
For students in Pakistan, the visa process is quite easy, you just have to submit your passport, visa fee, your documents showing your financial strength and application form at Gery Visa dropbox. You can ask the complete list from Gery Visa dropbox for required documents. Now each major city have local centers. Italian embassy don't handle visa service as before. Within one month you will get your documents back, with visa stamped or refused. The thing to keep in mind is that don't apply late. Try to apply for visa as early as possible.



This is a just short overview to apply, for queries you can comment, may be able to help out.

University in Pakistan

To set the parameter for best university many aspects are considered. The teaching level, student response, internationalization research and many more. If you look deep into the study culture it all based on American education system (university level study). Syllabus set for the Matric SSC and Intermediate HSSC are quite good but they don't prepare the pupil for undergrad studies. So university has to pay more attention towards their students.

If you consider GIKI, NUST, LUMS, IBA, KEMC they are the prestigious institutes of Pakistan. You can't decide which one have the best method of teaching. But if you look around, you will see many great names who studied from these institutes. If you go back a generation or two you will find Government College Lahore, Punjab University, Forman Christian College. So with time the study appetite of  young Pakistani generation is increasing.

Once a single method of teaching is implemented and just single selection procedure is selected, there will be a lot more talented and patriotic professionals who will prefer to stay in their own country and serve.

Study in Italy

Today Italy ranks among the 8 most industrialized Countries in the world. Alongside some big companies, both state-owned and private, it has developed a sound network of small and medium-sized undertakings, promoted a few scientific parks, and is incentivating basic and applied research in a great variety of fields (biology, ICT, medicine, physics, etc.).

Italy has played an important role in European higher education: it is one of the four countries that first engaged to create the so-called "European Area of Higher Education" (Sorbonne Declaration, May 1998), thus starting that type of higher education reform which, known as "Bologna Process" (Bologna Declaration, June 1999) is being implemented all over Europe.

No other Country in the world has so many art and culture treasures like Italy. More than a half of historical and artistic estates of the world is in our Country (data UNESCO).

Italy is a Country reach in history and traditions, testified by museums, cathedrals, residences, castles, archaeological sites, etc. Each place keeps important traces of the past and the natural environment surprises the visitor with mountains covered with snow and kilometers of shores all around the peninsula.

For further information about Italy and studying in Italy see the website of MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research) " Study in Italy".

" Study in Italy" is a valuable information tool for students wishing to attend higher education (H.Ed.) programmes in Italy, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Italy has the top research institutes, and famous higher education institutes. North-Italy to South-Italy you will find highly ranked universities and institutes.
Each year Italy attracts thousands of international students for higher educations. After years of excellence, now the universities are providing another language of instruction "English". This strategy has make the education easy for foreign students. Study in Italy is now most favorable as compare to neighboring countries, where you still can't find degrees totally taught in english. 

Undergraduate Studies in Italy

Italy is one of the best country which offers the same rights to international students like their own national students. A lot of universities offers scholarships in undergraduate studies. One of the best aspect regarding the regional government bodies is that they also offer scholarships to students on the basis of merit and need base (only for the first year of studies).

You may not find your chosen professional studies here in Italy in English, but in coming future there will not be any field or faculty left who don't offer courses in English.

Specifically engineering disciplines, Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino which are ranked No.1 and No. 2 respectively in national rankings are offering a lot of courses in English at undergraduate studies.

The selection of course is much important and after that is surviving in this Non- English country, national language is Italian, it will be much better when u come here focus on your Italian language skills. Then there are money issues, you might not find any odd jobs here so you should achieve a scholarship. If its not available then you have to set your budget to at least 4,500 euros per anum, disregarding your luxurious way of living. Because with this money you will only survive here, you will pay your rent, pay for food and bills.

Then there is a part of reasonable resident, you pay attention towards community. Improve your language skills, and be a part of society.

Best of luck ahead if you chose to study in Italy. Any questions you can leave in comments, its all basic for those students who want to study abroad and don't have a clue that Italy also offers great opportunities.