Close your eyes and picture this with me:

You’re 18, you’ve just learned to keep your hormones in check, you’ve got a bunch of amazing and interesting passions—the rock-solid foundations of your life: politics, economics, and personal finance, which you follow religiously; electric guitar and extreme metal; and, of course, Michele Boldrin.

Well, that was me at 18. These things filled my days, and as a newly minted adult, I thought I had it all figured out—I was confident and had clear ideas about everything. Everything except for one tiny detail, a detail that made all the difference: choosing a university.

“I love politics! I’ll study political science!” But then what? Become a cashier? A fishmonger? Work at the tax agency?

“Alright then, let’s go with economics—ETFs and government bonds, here I come!” But then what? End up as a financial consultant at a bank or an accountant?

It was a mess. I had no clue about what to do.

Of course, in my head, it wasn’t so obvious at the time. By May of my last year in high school, I was pretty convinced I’d study economics and become the next Boldrin. But looking back, I now see how chaotic my decision-making process actually was.

Then, one day, while wasting way too much time on YouTube (as one does), I stumbled upon the famous lecture by Professor Fabio Sdogati on the financial crisis—a two-hour deep dive into how the global economic balance radically shifted after 2008.

That video blew my mind. It was insanely interesting. It covered concepts I kind of knew but had never really connected the dots on. So I watched it multiple times, took notes, rewatched it, did some research…

Obviously, I also looked up Fabio Sdogati—who he was, what he taught. And that’s when I saw, on the Politecnico di Milano website, that he was somehow connected to this weird-sounding faculty I’d never heard of before: Management Engineering (now, if I Google this today, I might have completely misread it at 18, because I can’t find any mention of it. But I swear I saw the words “Management Engineering” next to Fabio Sdogati’s name. Anyway, doesn’t matter).

So, wait, there’s an engineering degree (engineering! Tough stuff!) that’s about managing things? Like, people do stuff, and you… manage them? Cool.

And that’s pretty much how it happened. There are about 50 other side stories I could throw in, but I won’t drag this out too much. Obviously, Management Engineering didn’t work quite like I imagined it at 18, and blah blah blah…

The whole point of this is to tell you that my university choice was made on the dumbest possible premises, with almost no confidence in the outcome. On top of that, I was terrible at math in high school, so just imagine how much faith I had in myself facing Calculus 1 and 2. But hey, it all worked out! Dumb luck!

Management Engineering will welcome you. It will save you. It will give you a home!

Okay, maybe not a great home. More like a tiny, run-down apartment. But hey, still better than the alternatives! Political science gives you a raft with no roof. Economics gives you a garage.

I’m not saying this to those who are super passionate about economics and dead set on studying it—go for it and crush it! I’m talking to my brothers and sisters in confusion, the ones who still don’t know where they want to go: do Management Engineering.

Here are two reasons why you should consider it:

The Breadth of Knowledge

You’ll study a bit of everything. You’ll get input from so many different fields. You’ll have the classic hardcore engineering subjects—Calculus 1 & 2, Physics, Geometry—but if you go in with the right mindset, you’ll get through them. Maybe not on the first try, maybe not with top grades, but you’ll pass, and you’ll never have to look at them again.

And once you’re past those? There’s literally everything: programming, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, economics, industrial process management, logistics… even some marketing and business management if you want. If you’re even remotely curious, you’ll find something that clicks.

And who knows? Maybe you won’t become a math genius, but the concepts you’ll encounter in Calculus, Geometry, and Linear Algebra are completely new compared to high school, and you might actually get interested in them!

For example, I was awful at calculus. I had to retake those exams multiple times. But surprisingly, I found vectors and matrices fascinating. Studying geometry was super fun, and guess what? Those concepts are the foundation of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, which I now study and hope to build a career in.

Check out the whole list of subjects i’ve been studying during my Bachelor: you gotta be mad not finding something fun!

Master’s Degree Flexibility

No matter what our mechanical engineering friends say, bachelor’s degrees in engineering are more or less the same, give or take a few courses.

But Management Engineering has something others don’t: thanks to its breadth, it gives you access to a bunch of different master’s programs.

After three years, you’ll have covered so many different topics that you’ll be able to make a well-informed choice about your master’s. And whatever you choose, you won’t be that far behind students from more specialized programs. Plus, your management background might actually give you an edge in some areas.

And worst-case scenario? If you realize after a year that this isn’t for you and you’re struggling to pass Calculus 2 even after ten attempts? Losing a year won’t ruin your life.

Oh, and at the end of it all, you’ll get to call yourself an engineer. And that’s something.

So yeah, long live Management Engineering. Long live indecision and Plan Bs. Because let’s be real—we’ve always found those computer science kids who’ve been coding since they were 10 kind of annoying. Geniuses.

And if you follow my path, at some point you’ll probably think, “Ugh, I should have just gone straight into Computer Science. I was such an idiot.”

But NO! Because remember? Before Management Engineering, there was no Computer Science on your radar! You were thinking about Political Science! Law school! Economics!

If you end up finding a solid career path, it’ll be precisely because you chose this weird, flexible degree.

So I’ll leave you with this thought, inspired by Cal Newport:

Management Engineering will save you from the Passion Hypothesis.

By exposing you to all these different areas, you’ll naturally gravitate toward the one you’re good at, the one where you actually perform well—not just something you thought you were passionate about without ever really trying it.

Maybe you thought you’d love economics, but then you realize you hate dealing with Excel spreadsheets and calculating interest rates. Management Engineering will save you from that mistake and might even help you discover that programming isn’t as hard as it seems—in fact, you might be good at it and enjoy doing it in your free time, on Youtube, maybe!

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TL;DR: If you’re lost, just do Management Engineering.

And that’s it. See you on the other side.

P.S. The original title should have been “Se non sai cosa fare: Ingegneria Gestionale”. Anyway, ChatGPT did a good job adapting it 🙂