Happy Birthday! DES Turns 40
It has trained several generations of economists working in academy and in research centers, but also managers, finance operators, diplomats, journalists and NGO professionals. DES, the program in Economic and Social Sciences (Discipline economiche e sociali in Italian), which is celebrating the 40th anniversary on Thursday, 7 May (Buon compleanno DES!, 14:30, Aula Magna, via Roentgen 1) has withstood the blows of time and those of university reforms and intellectual fads. It has transformed, over time, from a five-year to a four-year program, until finally doubling into an undergraduate course (CLES, Corso di laurea in economia e scienze sociali) and a graduate one, taught both in Italian and in English (Discipline economiche e sociali or Economic and Social Sciences), but has always maintained a unique personality.
"This is the course that teaches a method, the ability to think in a non-trivial way and tackle, therefore, problems never faced before", says Maristella Botticini, CLES director. "It's the program that best best combines depth and breadth: the depth that comes from the ability to analyze in detail economic facts, thanks to a first-rate mathematical training, and the breadth derived from the exposure to the social sciences studied alongside economics: from sociology to history, from demography to political science".
"The goal of the program," suggests Guido Alfani, director of the Des, "is to develop analytical and problem solving skills applicable in any field, accompanied by cultural and historical sensitivity. It is also the course that, least of all, aims at hyperspecialization, so that there are no majors. We hope to form a student able to build his own personal path".
On the occasion of the anniversary on Thursday, the Bocconi historian, Marzio Romani, will present an essay on DES birth, which has its roots in the period of the student protests, between the '60s and the '70s. It is curious to discover that non-DES Bocconi students disliked the establishemnt of what they considered a super-program accessible only to a few, and which allowed for a more assiduous and lively interaction with faculty, because they feared it might devalue the more traditional programs.
The program of Thursday's celebration (available here) includes the testimonies of DES graduates representative of different possible professional opportuities: Pierpaolo Battigalli, full professor of game theory and microeconomics at Bocconi, Raffaele Jerusalmi, CEO Borsa Italiana, and Monica Mandelli, managing director at Goldman Sachs, as well as two recent graduates as representatives of DES today.