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July 15, 2019 - “I’ve always loved cars. I was one of those kids who couldn’t wait for Sunday to watch Ferrari race around the track, so I didn’t think twice when I discovered that there was an automotive engineering degree program in Turin. I left Rome, my hometown, and took on the full five-year program with the goal of taking part in one of the first programs designed jointly by academia and industry, which in Turin meant Politecnico di Torino and FCA.”
Cosimo Colaneri, EMEA Planning, Methods and Cost Control – Product Development at Mirafiori, looks back enthusiastically on the start of his journey in the automotive world, a journey that continues today at FCA, where he heads up a team of five responsible for analyzing the cost of the braking system, wheels and other vehicle components. He is one of 5,000 young people who have attended the Automotive Engineering degree program created to train automotive experts and which features a combination of theoretical knowledge, imparted by professors at Politecnico di Torino, and operational skills, taught by FCA personnel for a total of over 900 hours of training per year.
This year, Cosimo was also called upon to be a trainer. “I’ve come full circle,” he jokes. “The value added we provide as engineers already working for the company lies in the practical side of the learning, but also in tutoring and encouraging students to apply projects and ideas in the real world. I’m proud to have helped train young people who dream of being a part of the automotive world while staying faithful to an approach that unites a strong education with critical thinking, open-mindedness and flexibility. That’s exactly what is needed in order to face the challenges of the marketplace, so much so that 95% of the students of the Automotive Engineering program find a job within one year of graduating.”
With electrification, autonomous driving and connected vehicles, and ecological and digital manufacturing, the automotive industry is changing rapidly, and industry experts need to keep pace with that change. This is done through innovation, of course, but also by combining knowledge in new ways in order to come up with effective solutions as and when they are needed. This is why thinking outside the box can make the difference, and who can do that better than an up-and-coming engineer who knows how today’s cars work and can imagine how we will be getting around in the future?