International Year One in Italy: Design, Fashion and Visual Arts

• Learn in English
• Earn University credits
• Progress to the 2nd year of your Bachelor’s Degree

The International Year One is a program offered jointly by The Italian Academy and MADE Design School providing students with the unique opportunity to enroll in the 1st year of the Bachelor Degree program in Design, Fashion, or Visual Arts with courses taught in English. Upon completion, international students will reach an intermediate level of Italian and will gain ECTS credits to transfer to any European university or will be offered guaranteed progression to the 2nd year of the MADE Bachelor degree programs.During the program, international students also attend Italian language classes to reach the necessary level to continue with their studies, interact with the local community and work in Italy.

The best way to achieve an international mindset while earning a Bachelor’s degree in an innovative and dynamic Design Academy in Italy.

Program Highlights

• 3 tracks available:
  • Design
  • Visual Arts
  • Fashion & Textile Design
• Scholarship reserved for all students that decide to continue the 2nd and 3rd year of the Bachelor degree at MADE Program: the yearly scholarship value is a 50% waiver on International Tuition Fees.
• Option to take part in the MADE LABS International Summer School in the month of July.
• Official CILS or CELI Italian language certification upon completion of the program

The International Year One awards Italian Ministry of Education university-level academic credits and grants admission to the 2nd and 3rd years of bachelor degree programs at MADE Fine Arts and Design Academy. Alternatively, students may choose to apply for credit transfer to any other University, Fine Arts Academy, and Design School in Italy.

Pathway workshops

An integral part of the International Year One is students’ participation in workshops and labs where they can gain a first-hand experience of the application of skills sets, techniques & methodologies acquired in class.

Learning by doing is not just wishful thinking, at Made Academy is the way all classes are run.

Thanks to these activities, students can enrich their artistic portfolio and gain a diversified experience: regardless of the chosen track, career-readiness is the goal of all Bachelor's programs at Made.

The Made Labs Summer School is an unparalleled opportunity to interact with artists and designers from all over the world and to join classes with acclaimed thought-leaders in various disciplines and art.

Intensive Italian course

The Italian language course is offered as a 6-month intensive program that allows students starting at beginner levels to achieve the required intermediate (B1) or upper-intermediate (B2) level of Italian language competence required to progress into Italian-taught degree programs, to integrate into the local community and to seek job opportunities in Italian firms.

Students are taught by expert, highly qualified native Italian language instructors that implement the communicative method in the classroom to achieve the best results in all 4 linguistic skills: speaking, writing reading, and listening comprehension.

Language certification

Students take part in an intensive CILS exam preparation course, which will cover the best practices for academic writing, preparation tests with CILS past papers, and oral exam simulations led by instructors that are University of Siena CILS examiners.

The Italian Academy is a CILS exam center. Students will be able to enroll in any exam session during the academic year.

The University of Siena CILS and the University of Perugia CELI are the most broadly recognized Italian language certifications worldwide in the academic and professional world.

Top Reasons to Join the International Year One

#1 Prepares for the Italian job market

The vast majority of undergraduate degrees in Art & Design in Italy are taught in Italian. For international students, this often brings the additional challenge of learning Italian before applying to University, making it harder and time-consuming.

With the International Year One, International students can learn Italian while they are enrolled in the first year of the Bachelor's Degree, thus gaining time while adding skills that will be highly valued in the job market.

#2 Designed for International Students

Our students come from a range of countries, age groups, and backgrounds. We welcome intelligent, creative, motivated people who are interested in moving into an art and design vocation.

#3 Opens the doors to the greatest opportunities

Besides allowing you to become familiar with the language and culture of Italy while studying in your first year of an undergraduate degree, the International Year One also provides you with the opportunity to experience first-hand what University life in Italy is about, preparing you for the next big steps you will take.

The program is for:

Students who wish to choose carefully which discipline of art and design they want to study while developing their practical skills and personal portfolio:

• Graphic design
• Fashion design
• Product design
• Interior design
• Architecture
• Creative Art
• Photography
• Drawing
• New Media
• Visual Communication

Students seeking an international career with an English-taught degree in Italy.

• A modern institution with an excellent professor-student ratio that will prepare students to succeed in their academic and professional endeavors.
• Classroom-based activities are integrated every semester with hands-on workshops, curricular excursions, project-based learning, and traineeships.
• This approach allows students to build a personal portfolio and artist CV, creating a direct connection to post-university employment opportunities.

Students that need to improve their Italian language skills.

The achievement of a recognized B1-level or B2-level (intermediate) certification of the Italian language is required to take part in Italian undergraduate degree programs.

Design | Art | Fashion English-taught courses

60 ECTS Credits (1st year of BA)

• Technical Design Drawing
• Basic Design
• History of Modern Art
• History of Applied Arts
• Design Methodology
• Digital Tools in Graphic Design
• Artistic Anatomy (Visual Arts track)
• Modeling (Fashion track)
• Pathway workshops & Made Labs

Italian Language courses

Language Certificate

• Italian language classes: Beginner to Intermediate
• Italian for Academic Purposes
• CILS/CELI Exam preparation course

Tracks

Fashion and Textile Design track

The course aims to train a textile/fashion sector expert in the product, in its main components and production processes: a designer capable of proposing an innovative, original and sustainable vision, which takes into account the contemporary context and its problems, from both a socio-cultural and a productive point of view. The student is encouraged to find a method of personal design and creative expression through a didactic that gives particular importance to experimentation, laboratory practice, and the teaching of industrial and artisanal processing techniques, which represent the excellence of Made in Italy.

Professional opportunities

The course trains a flexible and internationally oriented professional, able to operate in different areas within a production system made up of different types of companies: from tailoring and artisan laboratory to small and medium enterprises, up to large industry and agencies that express demand for specific skills related to the fashion and communication sector. The course is a solid basis for studies at the master’s degree level, also in international contexts.

Visual Arts track

Visual Realities is based on the founding principles of the MADE Program, declined in the context of visual narration, at the intersection of graphic design and photography, illustration and video.

The course aims to prepare students for the new contexts and roles that visual arts have taken on with respect to a cultural landscape in constant transformation.

Professional opportunities

Recent years have witnessed a significant evolution in the role of those who express, communicate, and narrate through images. Today. Visual artists are involved in the productive processes of artifacts as well as in the production of scenarios for the flow of ideas. They contribute to the changing urban and extra-urban contexts in which they are invited to work. The aim of the course is to train young artists capable of dialoguing both with other artists and actors in the art world and with institutions, government agencies, and public and private companies. We aim to train artists who will contribute to the requalification of their local territory as well as distant and different geo-political contexts.

Design track

The course aims to respond to the urgent needs of contemporary global ecology through the study and application of new systems of production and information technology while drawing on local and artisanal systems of production. This means working with materials and graphics, designing new products and new communications systems, coming to terms with new technologies, but also rethinking the role of local, artisanal, and industrial production in the contemporary world. Above all, it means questioning the ways we produce, market, and consume objects.

Professional opportunities

As young designers, students will be called upon to refine their understanding of themselves and their interests and to contextualize that understanding in the present, focusing on understanding the profound repercussions that their work will have in the world. New graduates, at the conclusion of an itinerary aimed at promoting the development of European-dimension professional skills, will be able to apply their skills as professionals in firms and companies working in the fields of product and service design, and visual and multimedia communications, as well as in private and public cultural and educational institutions. The training offered in the course will constitute a solid basis for studies in second-level degree programs, both in Italy and abroad.