Politecnico di Milano

The school has a very efficient tool, CareerServece, which helps students and graduates to find stages, internships and jobs offers. The offers are mainly located in Italy. They also provide some classes for CV tips and fake interviews hosted by professional figures in external companies that relate the students with the working world. As I am looking for an intership abroad I didn't find any opportunity in my field up till now.

From an educational point of view, the university stands at a very high level justifying the amazing rankings gained recently, in particular in Mechanical Engineering. The professors are very well-known and the research areas are cutting-edge. However, from recreational and general facilities (Library and studying areas, sport, canteens and etc.), unfortunately it resembles a 3rd world country university.

When I first sought admission to Politecnico di Milano, I saw that it was highly ranked as the best Engineering school in Italy. After having finished the first year here, I can confirm that it truly is the best in Italy if not in Europe. This is due to the quality of courses and Professors who are meticulous in their dissemination of knowledge. The exams here are tough but very insightful. You come out as a different person after every exam. Students here are multinationals and I have really benefited and learnt a lot about different cultures.

Do not choose this university based on its international rankings. They are just numbers, and have little to do with the quality of the teachings, the opportunities and the environment you will find at polimi. It is a frustrating experience, that will most likely leave you empty handed. 

Classes are structured in frontal theoretical lectures, in which professors just read slides. One could do that on his/her own. The whole didactic method is over reliant on group works, not because it is a good learning method, but because professors lack the resources to individually attend to all the students present in class. This means that there is barely ever an individual assessment on one's capacity and learning outcomes. 

The professors will say that peer learning makes the difference, but if you peers are idiots and do not care about actually learning, what is the point? Also, do you choose a university because you will learn from other students, or from the professors? You can check before hand who the professors are, what they did, and so on. But what should I learn about design from a Chinese girl who can barely tell me what her name is? Come on... 

This creates an environment where how much and how well you learn, how you put it into practice, the grades you get, are dictated mostly by how lucky you are when the project groups are formed. In Graduate courses, almost half of the class is formed by Chinese students who cannot speak one word of english.

This leads to scenarios in which italian students who already know each other will always work together. If you are not part of these groups, you will have to work with a bunch of brain dead asians who are unable to communicate, nor perform any kind of group work. And one cannot opt to work alone without facing opposition by the professors, who will decide to ignore you during project reviews or give you poor grades. 

I could go on forever, but to summarize the rest:
- Milan is not a nice city. Everything is expensive, everything is dirty, everything is fake and superficial, finding a room without getting scammed should be made an academic achievement 
- from a knowledge standpoint, the school doesn't teach anything valuable that you couldn't learn on your own. Design is about attitude and forma mentis, and you will not find anything that encourages it here
- when doing your mandatory internship you will realize how little you actually know and how useless your 2 years at the masters have been. That is, if you land a good internship. If you land a poor internship, you will realize how meaningless working as a designer is. Oh, and it will be unpaid. 
- the facilities themselves are more keen to a third world country. Noisy rooms, desks breaking apart, laboratories with outdated equipment. There is nothing to suggest this should be "one of the best design schools in the world". BECAUSE IT IS NOT. It just sells itself very well, but if you have just some critical thinking skills you'll realize it's all smoke and mirrors. 

My suggestion is to look elsewhere for your Master's degree. This place is a scam.

I did spent my 5 years in an international environment: during my master of science we had 36 different nationalities. Thanks to this and thanks to the team building approach i developed skills as problem solver in not typical situation. The courses are very professional, with some "new generation" items: desing optioneering, as example, is a course on the parametric desing approach.  Just a small problem is regarding the carreere service, it's a good one, but could be improve expecailly regarding the abroad's opportunities.