You can find the optional courses catalogue for first-year free choice credits in the curriculum of your degree programme. Optional courses start two weeks after the beginning of the second semester and last totally 12 weeks; There are 4.5 hours a week for lectures, which take place on Wednesday and Friday afternoons.
Each course has approximately 150 places, except for courses capped to a limited number of students for the use of equipped classrooms.
A certain number of places (10% of available places) is reserved to Architecture students.
Five places in each course are reserved to international mobility students, if there are any.
You can choose your optional course from the catalogue of Free choice credits – 1st year only:
- if it is your first year of enrolment;
- if you passed Mathematical Analysis 1 by the end of the Winter examination session of your first year
In this case you can choose your optional course on your personal page of the Teaching Portal (Create your PSP and APSP and Enrol in the new academic year portlet) from 28th February to 3rd March 2020.
You will not be able to modify your Annual Personal StudyPlanafter being allocated your first-year optional course. If you want to change your optional course, you need to wait until the next academic year. When you prepare your new PSP/APSP, you will be able to remove your optional course and substitute it with an optional course from the catalogue for third-year free choice credits.
First-year optional courses will start on 16th March 2020.
If you did not pass Mathematical Analysis 1 in the Winter examination session, you must take the remedial course in second semester. In this case you will choose your optional course (free choice credits) in the next academic year.
If you are a part-time student, you can choose your optional course only if you passed Mathematical Analysis 1 by the end of the Winter examination session and if you had inserted your optional course credits (free choice credits - first year) when you enrolled at Politecnico and created your APSP.
How to choose your optional course
- log in to your personal page of the Teaching Portal – Create your PSP and APSP and Enrol in the new academic year
- select your courses and rank 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;
- confirm your choice to complete this operation.
A message will be displayed on the screen ("Scelte effettuate in precedenza/Choices previously made").
The order of preference can be modified by logging in to this page again until the closing date for the choice of optional courses (deadline: 3rd March 2020).
Ranking list and course allocations
At the end of the examination session of the first semester, the Division of Student Affairs draws up a merit ranking list based on the results obtained by every student in their exams. This ranking list is used to assign optional courses to students.
The ranking list is created based on students’ scores. Every student is assigned a score, which is calculated by multiplying the number of credits of Mathematical Analysis 1, Chemistry and Computer Science by the grade obtained in each exam.
Students will be allocated their optional course following the order established in the ranking list and taking into account the preferences expressed by each student until all places are occupied.
When 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, the course will be offered to the students who have the highest number of exams passed with honours; subsequently, the remaining places will be randomly assigned with a computerized draw.
At the end of this process residual places can be offered to latecomers. For this reason, if you did not choose your optional course before the deadline, you can go to the Office of Student Services (at Cittadella Politecnica -1st floor) from 16th to 23rd March 2020 and check if there are any residual places.
Special cases
Optional course allocations are made in consideration of students’ participation in special degree programmes/projects and their profiles:
- student of the Bachelor’s degree programme in Automotive Engineering entirely taught in English will be granted a place in the Automotive Evolution course, if this was selected as their first choice;
- applicants to the Italian-Chinese Campus Project must choose their optional course following the standard procedure; nevertheless, if they are selected for this project, they will be automatically allocated the Chinese language course, instead of the optional course they had chosen;
- students attending classes at a SDSS (Strutture Decentrate di Supporto agli Studenti / Decentralized Student Support Units) will be granted a place for the streaming course, if this was selected as their first choice. In particular: students of the Biella SDSS campus will be granted a place in the Technological laboratory for the textile industry, provided that they have selected it as their first choice. This is because this course is delivered at the Biella campus;
- first-year students of the Bachelor's degree programmes attending classes at the Mondovì campus will be granted a place for a course taught through video lectures, if this was selected as their first choice. They will also be granted a place in the Technological laboratory for the textile industry, provided that they have selected it as their first choice. This is because this course is delivered at the Mondovì campus.
- first-year students enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree programme entirely or partially taught in English will be granted a place in one of the courses taught in English, if they were selected as their first choice;
Communications to students
You will receive a message into your PoliTo mailbox at the end of optional course allocations - at least two days before classes start. Please check which course you have been allocated a place for. Course schedule and classroom information will be available on your personal page of the Teaching Portal.