Istituto Secoli Review

Hello Universe

I am  writing this post because I think there is a need to review some of the italian schools in Milan. It is about three years I am in Italia and I have a lot of friends here, many people from Marangoni, Domus Academy and Istituto Secoli.  Many people come here in milan from Japan, china, Korea and other places to study fashion and pattern making. I did studied in Secoli and when I looked for information I did not find any review about the school. I took the word of many people who say Secoli is a good school of pattern making. I like to share my knowledge of school with people who seek information about this school.

In the technical side: Secoli is fairly good. They teach you many things you need to know in order to start as a pattern maker. The courses are difficult and demanding, exams are difficult and at the end you feel that you learned a lot. You start by learning blocks and then move to Fantasia and etc. If you are doing a master class, you need to do a fashion show. The fashion show takes a lot of your time and energy and you do one outfit each, the whole class present one big collection as a whole. at the end you learn a lot but I suggest you continue reading.....

Organization of the school: The school is poorly organized. The planning of the courses is very chaotic. You are put through a lot of unnecessary pressure. You need to sign a big book 3 times a day, there is a lot of paper work that is unbelievable to do in any year beyond 2000!! The fashion show takes a lot of your time and energy just to do one outfit for the face of the school. The last part of the courses which is Su Misura ( made to measure) which is very important is done in a very short amount of time and is very stressful for everyone. You pay for everything for the fashion show cloths, and the school keeps the outfit for many months after the show and you need special permission to take your own outfit. The fashion show itself is poorly organized. There are hardly anyone from outside industry, you have no exposure, there is no real award for students and the show is basically a big advertisement for the school with the cost and energy of students. They do not give you photo or video of the show, each person is asked to pay a high amount if they want the photo of their outfit which is really unfair given all the costs of the show. The lack of organization, and poor planning really bothers you. They kick you out of the sewing lab around 5 pm. you have no chance to stay late to finish your dress. There are many students using the same lab. You need to wait a lot to get the iron. They over book the sewing lab and have many short term courses while the students are trying to go ahead with their courses. so there is always lack of irons, lack of machines,.. lots of frustrations that comes out of poor planning. ask me if you need specific examples and I am happy to provide info!


School general attitude toward students: Some of the teachers are nice, polite and heplful. But overall they treat students like they are 14 years old. Most of us who attended the secoli are graduates of other program, and not kids trying to get some education. Yelling, rude comments and disrespect is very commen. Your grades is based on how the teacher likes you, for one mistake a teacher can deduct 5 points or 15 points and there is nothing you can do about it. You can not object to your grade. The teacher is the GOD in secoli and you are the slave, If you don't accept your grade, they ask you to redo the exam. Basically, they control your marks and you have no way to argue it.

The most important Job opportunity and industry contact: from the website of the secoli, you see big names. That's why we italians like to plan our educations. In a hope there will be an internship with a big company. Instead there is zero contact with industry. Secoli tells everyone to put their resume on their website. They do not help anyone to get in touch with the industry. There is ABSOLUTLY no help from the school in finding an internship. You can make an appointment with the president of school which basically will no help you. I see everyday students from Domus or Marangoni find great internship because their school help them but Secoli completely ignores their graduates. After you finish, you are left lonley with no help from the School and good luck finding a job in Italia! many of my classmates already went back to their country, I am working in a very low key company with no pay, I looked about 1 year and had 5 interviews. But I found them on my own, and Secoli never helped. Given the real big tuition you pay to this school, the question remains, Did it worth it?