Why study informatics at USI Università della Svizzera italiana

Three reasons for studying Informatics:

  • because information technologies pervade our daily lives and are the backbone of the economy and society
  • because it is a growth sector where qualified specialists can find excellent career opportunities
  • because it offers the opportunity to be an active part of technological evolution

 

And five for choosing the USI Faculty of Informatics:

  • learn by doing, thanks to a unique learning model, in a lively and cosmopolitan Faculty
  • acquire solid technical skills and core soft skills, opening up to international careers
  • experiment with advanced technologies and application contexts, in contact with the business world
  • interact directly with international professors in a student-friendly environment
  • study where Informatics means passion, creativity, and amazement

 

Marco Primi

Bachelor and Master in Informatics graduate, Software Engineer at Netflix

"Informatics has always fascinated me. It is somewhat magical in the way you can teach a lifeless object to do something that makes our life a little easier, expressing thus your creativity. I chose USI because of its very modern study curricula, focusing on the application of theory, thanks to the various groups project you have to realize and present. In addition to learning all the required technical skills, this approach allows the so-called soft skills to be developed, which today are very important for professionals. I also very much liked the international flair of the university and the fact that all courses are given in English, an absolute must to be able to enter the world of informatics".

 

Communicate, watch television, take pictures, shoot videos, set the alarm clock, listen to music, write a text, find information to do your homework, check the weather forecast, find a specific location: today, more than ever, computer science pervades our daily lives.

Studying informatics means much more than just computers: it means being at the heart of the backbone of the economy and of society. It means choosing a growth sector where qualified specialists can find excellent career opportunities. It means the possibility of shaping reality. And at the USI Faculty of Informatics you will learn to do so with creativity, elegance and passion, in application contexts ranging from software engineering to 3D animation, from information retrieval technologies to security, from programming languages to interactive systems,and from computational simulations to artificial intelligence.

 

Our study curricula

 

What we offer

The USI Faculty of Informatics offers study curruicula aimed at training high-profile specialists, capable of identifying and dealing creatively with the increasingly complex challenges that the economy and society demand from the IT world.

In our training model, the theoretical foundations are constantly applied to real projects, to be addressed with the critical use of the most advanced technologies. Students are thus - actively - at the centre of the learning process and learn to "do" from day one. This allows them not only to acquire rigorous theoretical knowledge and solid disciplinary skills, but also to develop systems thinking and soft skills such as working in a team, managing a project, communicating with the client, presenting their ideas effectively, and having a good command of the English language.

 

Grasp all hope, ye who enter

The practical and project-oriented approach is reinforced by internships in the industry and by the favourable student-to-teacher ratio, which allows direct and open interaction with internationally renowned professors and researchers. All this in a highly cosmopolitan Faculty: our students, researchers and professors come from 50 different countries and English is the language of tuition starting right from the Bachelor's programmes.

An environment in full swing, animated by a deep, genuine passion for informatics, where one can grow and develop the desire to do and to amaze, thus opening doors to international careers: Google, Apple, Netflix, Spotify are but a few of the companies where our graduates have found employment.

 

The Swiss university system

The Swiss university system, which includes USI, is a renowned quality system that makes Switzerland one of the most competitive countries in the world despite its size.

There are three particular strengths of this system:

  • international appeal – Swiss universities attract students and faculty from many different countries; altogether, a quarter of the students and half of the researchers at Swiss universities come from abroad; at USI, 65% of students are foreign, coming from 100 different countries.
  • high employment rate of graduates – on average, 1 year after graduation over 90% of graduates have joined the workforce.
  • favourable framework conditions – Switzerland is a country with a quality of life among the highest in the world, efficient public services and a stable political system, which allow for positive interactions between the public and the private sector leading to important investments in education (around 17.500 USD per student per annum, against the OCSE average of 10.200 USD), research and innovation.