When I started my Masters’s program in Integrated Product Design in Milano in 2020, I was excited. Enthusiastic about living and studying in the birthplace of some of the most radical ideas of European design – Two years later, I graduated and am left a little disillusioned.

All that I appreciated about studying in a creative field during my Bachelor’s was absent at PoliMi. There is little to no encouragement of experimentation or free abstract thinking; instead, the program seems to be stuck in a rigid construct of tradition and technicalities. The close ties to big industrial players, often heralded as an advantage of the school, were only perceived as limiting and, at times, exploitative. Collaborations with said companies felt more like unpaid labor than valuable design experiences.

In a sense, studying design at Politecnico felt like studying design as if nothing had happened in the last 30 years. There were very few references to the challenges humanity faces today and how design might be a medium to address and tackle these. An abstract, but overall very conservative concept of innovation is casually thrown around during courses, but nobody present seems to really know what it means. In addition to this uninspired and corporate-like content void, Politecnico also seems to have a problem with open feedback culture. At PoliMi, the requirements seem to be: Do things right but never differently. As a result, students often cater almost exclusively to the (very often male) professors’ wishes. “Someone has the documentation of the top graded project from last year? AMAZING – let’s slightly change their project and submit it.” The problem here is obvious: Designing differently does not necessarily mean wrong. On the contrary! Taking creative risks is what studying design should be about, and students will only take those risks if they can design in an environment where experimentation is not only encouraged but also promoted. None of which is the case at this school.

Overall, Politecnico di Milano is certainly not a bad school. It is certainly not the best design school in continental Europe, as the QS ranking suggests, but if you are looking to work in a classic industrial design job, you will be satisfied with the technical design education you receive. But if you are looking for a creative education that expands your horizon of what design can and should achieve, then you will be happier going somewhere else.