Structure and contents

This full-time programme stretches over two years. It allows students to personalize their study curricula according to their interests. The core skills are acquired in the first two semesters. The third semester is dedicated to more specialized courses and electives that can be chosen according to the student's preference. For example, students interested in an area such as cryptocurrencies take as electives Software Performance and Distributed Algorithms. Those with an interest in personalized finance (aka "Robo Advising") may instead take Banking, Corporate Finance, and Project Management, while those interested in Algo trading take Advanced Derivatives, Advanced Asset Pricing II, Fixed Income Markets, and Financial Engineering. In the fourth semester, students have a choice of completing their master thesis in a university research group, or a more applied thesis project in a company - both carried out in collaboration with the Fintech Laboratory.

The Master Director, after evaluation of the academic background, will assign each student to one of the two tracks: 

• Track Advanced Informatics: for students with Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related disciplines (eg. Computer Engineering).
• Track Core Informatics: for students with Bachelor's degree in any other subject (see admission requirements).

From the Academic Year 2024/25 students can also choose the Founders' Option. 
 

* Only if Fundamentals of Informatics passed with at least 7.5/10

The Founders Option of the Master in Financial Technology and Computing supports student entrepreneurs in developing their startups individually or collaboratively with fellow USI students.
In addition to receiving academic mentoring and training on launching a start-up, students can obtain up to 30 ECTS in recognition of the practical experience gained in working on their own start-up.

Discover more here.

The Faculty of Informatics encourages and promotes the talent of its Bachelor and Master students by offering them summer internships in academic research within the programme Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program - UROP.

Internships are extracurricular, and access is on a competitive basis. Students work one-on-one with an advisor to develop a deeper understanding of both the concepts taught during the semester and the research topic. Students considering continuing in academia should seriously consider applying for a UROP position.

All research opportunities for this year are listed here.

See all the job and internship opportunities in the USI Job Bank.

Top-level faculty of international renown teach innovative courses, with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation and in collaboration with prestigious institutions at local and international level. Professors are pursuing research on a variety of topics and are active participants in Swiss and international research projects and networks. Visiting professors from renowned universities complement the top-quality teaching.

Teaching methods at both the Faculty of Informatics and the Faculty of Economics stress an interactive approach or dialogue with the students. Further, as most tasks in organisations become increasingly interdisciplinary it is also important to be able to work across traditional areas, which is a skill that is actively encouraged within the programme. This is reflected in the variety of different teaching methods used including lectures, case studies, group work, games and fieldwork.

The Faculty and the students are an international group, with education and work experience from across the world. This increases learning and cultural exchanges, as students learn to work effectively with people from different cultures.

Academic Directors: Prof. Fernando Pedone

Co-Directors: Prof. Marc Langheinrich and Dr. Peter Gruber

Admission to English-language Master’s programmes at USI requires a good command of English. Applicants whose previous degree was obtained in a language other than English are required to provide an internationally recognized language certificate at the B2+ level as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), or an equivalent test result (e.g., TOEFL, IELTS, etc.).

The B2+ level on the CEFR corresponds to the following scores in internationally acknowledged exams:

Important:

• The language certificate must be included in the application package: candidates whose Bachelor's was entirely taught in English must upload an official document mentioning the tuition language (e.g., official transcript, diploma supplement, or any other official certificate issued by the university) in the application form.
• We only accept the above English qualifications (IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge English, TOEIC).
• The certificate must still be valid at the point of the application. We generally cannot accept language test results older than three years as of September 1st.
• Certificates obtained by passing the IELTS Academic Online or TOEFL iBT Home Edition tests may also be submitted for admission to the programme.

Italian

As Lugano is located in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, students might be interested in acquiring the basics in Italian.
The Università della Svizzera italiana offers a free of charge Italian language course: further information can be found here.