A Bridge Between University and Job Market

Every day, taking the subway or going to post office, people have dealings with companies, even though most of the time they do it reflexively. We usually visit the front offices of companies open to the public, but we hardly ever get the chance to see what is going on backstage, in the places where the production activities and management decisions happen. With this in mind, Carlo Salvato, Director of the Bachelor in Business Administration and Management launched 'Experience the Company', a program now in its third edition born out "of an idea I had and then developed with the student reps of Obiettivo Studenti."

The thing takes place between February and April, and this year it will kick off on February 22 by getting a first-hand experience of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, the company managing the Italian railway network. "The first year, we started off a bit on the sly, with only three in-company visits, but now the program is much more dense. "We work in two ways," says Salvato, "on the one hand we host entrepreneurs who bring their testimonies, on the other, we do real company visits."

"Obviously, considering we're talking about 500-1,000 students, every student normally has the opportunity of doing just one visit, while the number of students admitted to each visit varies according to the logistical capability of the host company. " The program takes place in the second semester because it builds upon the exam in business administration which is administered in the first semester and provides students with the basics of management theory.

"Until they start college, students know next to nothing about real-world companies; then at Bocconi they suddenly have to discuss them," says the director of the course, who adds: "The purpose of these visits is just to give them a concrete example of what they are studying." Visits usually last at least half a day, include a welcome coffee and a meeting with corporate leaders who present the company and thus introduce the actual visit. But in fact, for students and the accompanying faculty, the day begins earlier and ends later. "On the the way there, people discuss what their expectations are," Salvato explains, "while on the trip back they discuss what we have seen. The importance of this program," says the director, "is that finally students see with their eyes business organizations where they might will be placed someday; it is like building a bridge between academia and the world of jobs".

"The most important thing I learned when I visited the Molteni Mobili furniture company," says Eduardo Zampogna, second-year student from Reggio Calabria "is that by daring and experimenting you can achieve great results. If you have passion and ability to innovate, also in terms of marketing strategies, no goal is precluded." A completely different reality, larger and somewhat more traditional was the one observed firsthand by Helena Senatore, a Milanese student in the second year of Management: "We visited the headquarters of Unicredit in Milan. In my high school imagination I had imagined large banks as depersonalized environments, offices after offices where people worked tirelessly and without creating personal relationships. Conversely, when I got there I could appreciate the lively environment, and we visited the various departments of the bank shown around by the division managers, and, during the lunch break, we talked with employees from various offices about aspects of their work, and that was the most formative aspect of the visit ."