The catalogue of Optional courses that allow you to get first-year free choice credits is published in the Curriculum. Optional courses start two weeks after the beginning of the 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  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 to the students of the degree programmes of the Architecture area.

Furthermore, for each course, 5 seats are reserved to potential foreign mobility students.    

You can choose your Optional courses from the catalogue of FREE CHOICE CREDITS – FIRST YEAR only if you have passed the exam of Mathematical Analysis I during the winter session of your first year. In this case you will be enabled to express your preferences for Optional courses from 2^nd to 6^th  March 2018.  

Alternatively, you can choose from among the courses and activities listed in the catalogue of FREE CREDITS, with the following possibilities:         

• two optional courses worth  6 credits (CFU) each one         
• a 12-credit internship (if it is foreseen by your programme Curriculum)     
• choice of 3-credit training activities        
• several combinations of optional courses (6 CFU) /training activities (3 CFU) /internship (9 CFU), if it is foreseen by your programme Curriculum.

     

If you have not  passed Mathematical Analysis I in the winter session of the second semester, you will have to take the remedial course and you will be able to choose your free choice credits starting from 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, you are allowed to express your preference only if you had previously purchased the free choice credit module for your first year when you enrolled at Politecnico and completed your APSP.         

How to choose your Optional courses:        

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

You must select your Optional 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 this operation, you must confirm your choice. A message will appear on the screen (Scelte effettuate in precedenza/Choices previously made). The order of preference can be modified by logging again until the deadline for the choice of Optional courses  (deadline: 6^th March 2018).

Creation of the ranking list and allocation of courses

At the end of the first-semester examination session, the Division of Student Affairs prepares a merit ranking list, based on the results obtained by every 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. Every 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 and taking into account the preferences expressed by every student , until all places in the classroom are occupied.  

It might happen that several students with the same position on the ranking list choose the same Optional course, but available places are not sufficient to satisfy all the 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 this process, in the event that some courses still have available places, these can be offered to latecomers.

Therefore, if you have not chosen your Optional courses within the deadline, you can go to the Office of Student Services (located at Cittadella Politecnica -1^st floor) from 16^th to 23^rd March 2018 and check if there are any residual places.   

Special cases:

Offers for Optional courses are made taking into account the participation into special degree programmes/projects and considering 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 the event that you are selected for the project, you will be automatically assigned to the Chinese Language course, instead of the Optional course 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 belong  to the Verrès VSDSS 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 Biella SDSS 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 degree 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 9^th March 2018. Failure to pay will cause the elimination of the course from your Annual Personal Study Plan.

COMMUNICATIONS TO STUDENTS

You will receive a message into your  institutional mailbox when all Optional courses have been allocated - and in any case at least two days before the beginning of classes. You will have to check which course you have been assigned to. Course schedule and classroom information will be available on your personal page of the Teaching Portal.