Italy has long been known for its great achievements in art and design, food and wine, and, of course, la dolce vita. At URI, we also think of Italy’s history of spectacular engineering accomplishments—from the Roman aqueducts and the canals of Venice to the country’s magnificent high-performance cars (think Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini). Now, students enrolled in our world-renowned International Engineering Program can get even more international, because we’ve just blended our Italian language program with engineering to give our international engineering students a fantastico, one-of-a-kind experience.
Our 26-year-old International Engineering Program, the first of its kind in the United States and a national model, is a five-year program in which you’ll earn a B.A. in a language and a B.S. in engineering, and spend one full year abroad, studying at a partner institution in Germany, France, Spain, China, and now, Italy, and working at leading engineering firms overseas. It’s also a program with a nearly-100 percent job placement rate for students within six months after graduation. The new Italian option is thanks to a partnership between URI and the University of Calabria in southern Italy.
“Italy is one of the most highly industrialized countries in the world, where engineers work to design some of the world’s best cars, motorcycles, bicycles, small appliances, and electronics. And the University of Calabria has one of the oldest and most prestigious engineering programs in Italy, with especially strong civil and mechanical engineering programs and a new program in architectural engineering. It is the ideal partner for URI in Italy,” said Michelangelo La Luna, associate professor of Italian and director of the Italian International Engineering Program.
The first URI students to participate in the new program will likely travel to Calabria in the 2014-2015 academic year. About 60 URI students currently major in Italian, making it one of the largest undergraduate Italian language programs in the country, and with the establishment of the Italian option in the International Engineering Program, it’s likely to grow. “It will provide our students with even greater opportunities to prepare for global engineering careers in Italian-owned companies with global operations, such as Ferrari, Fiat/Chrysler, GTech, and Barilla,” said International Engineering Program Director Sigrid Berka.
So, if you have imagined a Ferrari in your future, consider URI’s International Engineering Program, Italian Style. It might be the quickest way to make that happen.