Fostering students' awareness in choosing undergraduate studies in architecture @PoliTo

At the end of high school, students have to choose whether to go to university or not. If yes, they must choose an academic path: making the right decision for their future might be quite a challenge. That’s why, in the Italian panorama, most of the universities pursue orientation policies on the national and international context, more frequently in agreement with high schools. The contribution proposes a critical review of such policies developed for the Bachelor degree in architecture at the Politecnico di Torino (PoliTo), Italy. PoliTo orientation and tutoring office provides consultancy and any kind of information useful for students’ choice. Its main initiative are the Orientation days, organised since 2006, dedicated to promoting PoliTo among students at the last year of highschools. Here the dialogue with them allowed us to identify their fears and perplexities with the possible lack of specific preparation regarding the admission test. To face such issues, the Collegio (CdL) of Architecture decided to promote critical reinterpretation of the test (A.R.T.I. project). PoliTo website also offers many resources to help potential students with a test simulator. Furthermore, in 21/22, the CdL has designed two new specific experiences following the National guidelines for PcTo (routes for transversal skills and orientation, see Law 30/12/2018, 145 and DM 774 04/09/2019). The CdL offers two different PcTo to 15-17 years old students: ArCo Classico - architecture connects with the classical high school is extremely specific, ArCo - architecture connects with you is transversal to show how much the objectives and training courses proposed can be not obvious and necessarily bound to the school relationship/accessibility of the university path. ArCo projects are based on the analysis of the National indications for the high schools’ programs, to build a reference system that highlights not only disciplinary specificities but also those opportunities (not always explicit) of knowledge and transversal skills to the same. Such opportunities can be rediscovered if the chosen school address, sometimes unconsciously, does not directly offer the teachings involved then in the admission test. ArCo focuses on the disciplines involved in the admission test (drawing, maths, physics, history and history of art/architecture), offering two lessons for each discipline. 28 students participated. ArCo Classico involved 10 students, who lived a week of onsite lectures on how architects read the city and the territory: a small design intervention expressed in the form of a physical model was delivered. The possibility to show the interdisciplinary approach that undertakes the essence of architectural design and the necessity of a ‘multi-scale’ reading captured the participants’ interest. The results of the activities led us to offer the projects for next year.