Details

• Italy
• MAWiRe-21
• Graduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 5 months

1. Preparation

1. Start looking for housing immediately after you receive your confirmation by WU. 2. Get yourself a Codice Fiscale (Italian ID number) through the Italian Embassy/Consulate in Vienna. You will need it for public transport, a gym membership, an Italian phone number etc. 3. Download the following apps: you@B, Blackboard, ATM Milano (public transport) 4. I travelled via train (Interrail Erasmus Ticket). For this ticket there are often discounts up to 20%. If you fly, I would recommend the airport Milan Linate which you can reach with EasyJet or Austrian.

2. Accommodation

The housing market in Milan is a mess and very expensive. All of the apartments look way nicer on the pictures than in real life. Bocconi housing is more expensive than some other private accomodations and places are very limited. Beware of fraud on online platforms! Video apartment visits are generally not available. Don't forget to take booking fees and minimum stay requirements into account! I chose a shared apartment with 3 other people close to M3 Porta Romana. The platform I used was habyt/leaze and I paid € 775/month with a 5 month minimum stay. The are was very safe, central and close to Bocconi (20 minutes of walking). I wouldn't fully recommend the provider but it was ok in general. Don't expect a quality of housing as is available in Vienna.

3. Academic life at host university

Even though it is a private university the campus facilities at WU are much nicer. The modern facilities often shown online are only for MBAs and PHDs. The professors are very student-oriented and open for changes and feedback. In comparison to WU law courses are much more abstract at Bocconi and work less with specific paragraphs of a Act or Regulation and more with a general overview and comparison of different legal systems. Not every course allows students to take printed out laws into the exam and most of the teaching materials are slides and not textbooks. Exams are often open essay-style questions and not problem-style questions or fictitious cases. I can definetely recommend the Master Course International Law with Professor Roger O'Keefe who was very knowledgeable, entertaining and is a skilled orator.

5. Every day life in the host country

Public transport for students (only inner zone) costs 22 € per calendar month Milan is as safe/unsafe as any other bigger European city. Most gym memberships are relatively expensive (50-80 €/month) and everyone needs to provide a special medical certificate (around 50 €) before joining. Bocconi provides a swimming pool and a gym (both run by a third-party) which if used with monthy subsriptions are really expensive (together around 150 €/month). There are special discounts for students available. I personally only used the swimming pool (2*10 entries) which cost me - combined with the obligatory Bocconi Sport membership for discounts - around 200 € in total. The city is also great for running as it is mostly flat. Milan hosts a lot of events (DesignWeek, FashionWeek, Giro d'Italia, Milan Marathon, Stramilano) and is home to two well-known football clubs that play in Serie A and therefore every week one team plays at San Siro Stadium in Milan. The city also has a lot of cultural activities to offer (Teatro alla Scala (expensive), Gallerie d'Italia, Pinacoteca di Brera, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, etc.)

6. Testimonial

My exchange was made special mostly because of three things: 1. I was lucky enough to experience so many once-in-a-lifetime events: Seeing the passing of the Olympic torch and my first Olympic Games live, watching an opera at Teatro alla Scala, watching the game of AC Milan against Juventus Turin at San Siro, experiencing events like the Design Week and the Giro d'Italia. 2. Experiencing how different and similar at the same time law gets taught at another university in a different country. 3. Seeing so many beautiful Italian towns and cities for the first time.