The catalogue of Optional courses that allow you to obtain first-year free credits is published in the Curriculum. Optional courses start two weeks after the beginning of second semester and they last totally 12 weeks; 4.5 hours a week are dedicated to lectures, which take place on Wednesday and Friday afternoons.

Each course has approximately 150 available places, except for courses with limited seats due to the need to use equipped classrooms. Video lessons do not have any limitation. A certain number of seats (10% of available places) is reserved for students enrolled in degree programmes of the Architecture area. Furthermore, for each course, 5 seats are reserved for potential foreign mobility students.

You can choose courses from the catalogue of FREE CREDITS – FIRST YEAR only if you have passed the exam of Mathematical Analysis I in the winter session of the year of first enrolment. In this case you will be enabled to express your preferences for Optional courses from 3^rd to 7^th March 2017.

As an alternative, all students can select courses and activities listed in the catalogue of FREE CREDITS, by choosing among several possibilities:         

• two optional courses carrying  6 credits (CFU) each one         
  
• a 12-credit internship (if it is foreseen in your programme Curriculum)     
  
• choice of 3-credit training activities        
  
• several combinations of optional courses/training activities/internship (if it is foreseen in your programme Curriculum).
  

If you have not  passed the exam of Mathematical Analysis I in the winter session of second semester, you will have to take the remedial course and you will be able to choose free credits as of the next academic year. If you have already been validated one Optional course after a transfer, a career credit recognition or an internal transfer, you do not have to express another preference. If you are enrolled as a part-time student with an Annual Personal Study Plan greater than 34 credits, you are not allowed to express any preference.            

How to choose Optional courses:        

You can choose your Optional courses from your personal page of the Teaching Portal, through the section “Compila Piano Carriera e Carico Didattico”/ Fill in PSP and APSP.

You must select your courses from the page and put them in order of preference, by either using the arrows located on the side of each course, or by dragging and dropping them in the desired position. In order to complete the operation, you must confirm your choice. A message will be shown (“Scelte effettuate in precedenza” / Choices previously made). The order of preference can be modified by logging into the procedure again until the deadline for Optional courses choice (deadline: 7^th March 2017)

Creation of the ranking list and allocation of courses

At the end of the first-semester examination session, the Division of Student Affairs prepares the list of merit rankings, based on the results obtained by each student in the exams. The ranking list is used to allocate Optional courses to students.

The ranking list is created on the basis of students’ scores. Each student is assigned a score, which is calculated by multiplying the number of credits of Mathematical Analysis I, Chemistry and Computer Science by the grade obtained in the exam.

Desired optional courses are offered to students following the order established in the ranking list, until all places in the classroom are occupied.

Subsequently, students who have not been assigned to their preferred course, will receive an offer for other courses, on the basis of their order of preference and of the number of remaining places, until all seats are filled up.

It might happen that several students with the same position in the ranking list choose the same Optional course, but available places are not sufficient to satisfy all requests. In this case the course will be offered to those students who have the highest number of exams passed with honours; subsequently, remaining places will be randomly allocated by a computerized draw. 

At the end of the allocation process, places that remain available can be offered to latecomers.

Therefore, if you have not chosen your Optional courses following the procedure within the prescribed deadline, you can go to the Office of Student Services (located at Cittadella Politecnica -1^st floor) from 17^th to 24^th March and check if there are residual places. 

Special cases:

Offers for Optional courses are made taking into account the participation into special degree programmes/projects and/or the type of student.

1. If you are a student of the Bachelor’s degree programme in Automotive Engineering entirely taught in English, you will be granted a place in the “Automotive Evolution” course, provided that you have selected it as your first choice. 

2. If you have applied for the “Italian-Chinese Campus” project, you need to express your choices for Optional courses following the above mentioned procedures; but, in case you are selected for the project, you will be automatically assigned to the Chinese Language course, instead of the exam you had chosen;

3. If you are connected to any SDSS (Strutture Decentrate di Supporto agli Studenti / Decentralized Facilities for Student Support), you will be granted a place for the streaming course, provided that you have selected it as your first choice.  

• if you are connected to the SDSS of the Verrès campus, you will be granted a place for the “Sensors and actuation systems laboratory”, provided that you have selected it as your first choice. This is because this teaching activity takes place in the Verrès campus;
• if you are connected to the SDSS of the Biella campus, you will be granted a place for the “Technological laboratory for the textile industry ”, provided that you have selected it as your first choice. This is because this teaching activity takes place in the Biella campus;

  4. if you are enrolled in a Bachelor’s degre programme entirely or partially taught in English (first year), you will be granted a place in one of the courses taught in English, provided that you have selected them as your first choice.  

5. If you are a part-time student and you are offered an Optional course, you need to pay the fee for the corresponding number of credits by 17^th March 2017. Failure to pay will cause the elimination of the course from your Annual Personal Study Plan.

Communication to students

A message will be sent into your  institutional mailbox at the end of the allocation phase and in any case at least two days before the beginning of classes. This message encourages you to check which course you have been assigned to; it also provides information about the course schedule and classrooms.