#Elebocconi2021: Undergraduate School Council Debate

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On April 13th, Alessandro Allò from B.Lab and Tommaso Locatelli for TEAM, candidates for the Undergraduate School Council, took part in an online debate event organized by Bocconi Tv in collaboration with Tra i Leoni for the upcoming #Elebocconi2021, which will be held on the 21st and 22nd of April. Here is a summary of the main points in case you missed it!

*Unless when they are explicitly indicated in quotes, both the Moderator’s questions and the candidates’ responses have been reworded or paraphrased for length and clarity.*

Candidates

From TEAM, Tommaso Locatelli – 3rd year CLEAM student; future master’s in finance student; president of Bocconi Students for Wellness; public speaker for Bocconi Chinese Student Association; associate of Investment Banking International Student Association (IBISA)

From B.Lab, Alessandro Allò – 2nd year CLEAM class and course representative; interested in politics and philosophy

How do you think the university could take better advantage of Blackboard and the other online resources/platforms we are provided with?

B.LAB – AA:

• Making exam grades available on Blackboard in case of malfunctioning of the You@B platform.
• Giving students the possibility to access recorded lectures.
• Implementation of an “instant chat” on the Respondus Monitor platform during exams to allow students to have more efficient and immediate help in case problems arise.
• Creating an email filter to divide relevant messages from unwanted ones.
• Allow greater customization of the You@B calendar to include more activities such as debates, sports events, and other not strictly academic university activities.
• Creation of a more holistic Bocconi application that includes Punto Blu, MyPrint, and others to grant more efficient access to all online resources.

TEAM – TL:

• In general, we have delegated the question of recorded lectures to our Department Council[CEG1] .
• Making thesis resources available as an extracurricular course on Blackboard so that students have easy access to materials, such as library resources (bibliography guidelines etc.) and databases.
• Creation of a database of all Bachelor theses (with approval of the authors and advisors) available to all final-year students.
• The Respondus platform has many problems, including but not limited to the occasional unavailability and delay of the helpline. The idea of a Respondus chat however may be very “noisy” and logistically complicated especially in the context of a timed exam. 

(in response to TL) AA:

• We believe that it is feasible to include an instant chat on Respondus and we plan on asking the university to implement it in the next exam session. We hope this will eliminate the problem of students wasting time during exams. The chat could be a direct line to the professor or a teaching assistant during the exam.

How do you think that the internship process for undergraduate students can be improved? How can the communication between students and companies can be implemented?

TL:

• Implement the communication and organization of in-company training for undergraduate students, increasing the offer of opportunities specifically targeted at bachelor students.
• Organize Investment Banking week at the beginning of September.
• Allow for mock interviews in English, even for Italian students, and give the possibility to express a preference for a specific company or sector in the motivational letter to provide for better matching

AA:

• Include more offers for first and second-year students in the Jobgate platform.
• Implement a “job alert” system for when a placement on Jobgate is aligned with a student’s profile (GPA, CV, motivational statement)
• Allow for company-organized group projects & workshop in the undergraduate school such as those offered in master’s courses.

What can be done to optimize and facilitate the exchange process from a bureaucratic standpoint?

AA:

• Updating the course history pages on destination profiles to reflect the current offer at the exchange universities.
• Assign an advisor to students on exchange to follow them throughout their experience abroad
• Facilitate the exam conversion process, especially for “core” course subjects that are difficult to convert (such as in CLEF/BIEF).
• B.Lab has achieved their goal of allowing students to graduate in July after having received their exchange transcripts in July (previously the limit was in June).

TL:

• Bocconi has many useful tools, but unfortunately, they can sometimes be poorly structured or confusing to use.
• Implement & revisit the course histories and choices for exchange destinations.
• Give exchange students access to recorded lectures for curricular courses that they cannot attend in presence (they would also be available to students pursuing internships or with health problems).

Question to TL: Could you go into more detail about the “gap year” proposal included in TEAM’s program?

TL:

• Implement a deferred admission process for final-year undergraduate students whereby they can secure their place in a master’s program one year from their undergraduate graduation.
• The gap year offer would be conditional on the student’s involvement in a work experience during this period.

What can be done to encourage first-year students’ engagement and participation in campus life? 

AA:

• B.Lab organizes many events during welcome week for freshmen students. We give freshmen the possibility to meet and get to know each other, but also give them support during their first steps into university

TL:

• Provide some first-year modules to accepted students to give them an idea of university classes

Question to AA: Could you discuss the “resit” proposal included in TEAM’s program?

AA:

• The proposal consists of giving students the opportunity to re-take a single exam during the course of their academic career.

Question to TL: Could you expand on the “one day seminar” proposal in TEAM’s program?

TL:

• Plan to introduce a seminar dedicated to explaining the undergraduate thesis process to 3^rd year bachelor students (similar to already-existing event dedicated to the exchange program).

Topic introduced by TL: How should Bocconi evaluate students?

TL:

• Increase the number of individual assignments and group projects to better align the university and students with the rest of the international environment.
• Implement a method for students to receive all grades (of exams, group projects) before the exam registration deadlines.
• Place more importance on CV, extracurricular activities, and motivation in the master’s program application process. 

AA:

• Implement CV and motivational letter for applications to all graduate degrees.
• Give students the possibility to “build” their course grade over the semester through assignments and projects.

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 [CEG1]Here we can add a link to the Department council article