OrientaTI 2026: 1,254 high school students from Ticino at USI to explore their academic future

On 3 and 4 February 2026, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) hosted OrientaTI 2026, the annual event dedicated to university orientation for students in their penultimate year of high school. The event involved 1,254 students from fourteen schools: Collegio Papio Ascona, Istituto Elvetico, Istituto Leonardo Da Vinci, Istituto Sant'Anna, Liceo cantonale Bellinzona, Liceo cantonale Locarno, Liceo cantonale Lugano 1, Liceo cantonale Lugano 2, Liceo cantonale Lugano 3, Liceo cantonale Mendrisio, Liceo Diocesano, Liceo Everest, Scuola cantonale di commercio Bellinzona and Scuola svizzera di Milano.

All 12 Swiss public universities participated in the two-day event, including the two federal institutes of technology (ETH and EPFL), the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Franklin University Switzerland (FUS), and the Office for Educational and Career Guidance (UOSP). 

Although the main focus of the event is university degree programmes, OrientaTI also allows high school students to discover other possible paths for the future, as explained by Massimo Genasci-Borgna, Head of the UOSP, speaking to RSI.

Sharing their experiences with high school students are primarily Ticino university students who are pursuing their studies at one of the participating universities: "A very important element for a university is the fact that its students are ambassadors for its programmes and campus life," said Gabriele Balbi, Interim Rector of USI, in an interview with Quotidiano.

A total of 158 thematic sessions were organised to help students gather information about the academic programmes of interest to them. As noted in the last edition, the thematic area that generated the most interest was "Law and Economics", followed closely by "Medicine, Health and Sport" and "Social Sciences". 

USI was the second most popular choice among students (619 registrations, for a total of 459 students involved), with the University of St. Gallen in first place (635), followed by the University of Basel (594), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (541) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (477).

USI's strong showing confirms the upward trend observed last year and the increase in interest among Ticino students in our University.