Milan, Bocconi and the Making of a Young Economist

Economics explains the world. Business is how you act on it. For students drawn to both, our new international academy this summer is hosted somewhere that takes both very seriously indeed: Bocconi University, one of Europe's foremost business schools, in the design and finance capital of Milan.

Why Milan, and why Bocconi

Milan is a working argument for why economics matters. It is Italy's financial centre and its design capital at once — a city where global brands, family businesses, fashion houses and trading floors all share the same few square miles. Walk from a seminar to lunch and you pass the headquarters of companies students have read about in case studies.

Bocconi sits at the centre of it. Its reputation across economics, finance and management is genuinely global, and its campus carries the seriousness of an institution that has trained generations of European business leaders. For a teenager testing whether economics or entrepreneurship is their direction, it is hard to imagine a more fitting classroom.

From theory to a real venture

Like every A World Academy programme, the Milan week is built around a deliverable. Students arrive curious and leave having built and pitched something real.

The modules move deliberately from foundations to action: microeconomics in practice, financial markets, the startup canvas, marketing and brand, corporate strategy, behavioural economics, and pitching and negotiation. The hands-on spine of the week is unmistakable — students build and pitch a venture, run a trading-floor simulation, work a live company case study, visit a Milan business or fashion house, and face an investor panel Q&A that does not go easy on them.

By Saturday, each student has a business plan and a pitch they have defended out loud. A university and application masterclass threads through the week so they can carry that experience into their next application convincingly.

Who it is for

The Milan academy welcomes ambitious students aged 14 to 18 from around the world. The cohort is small and international by design, which is itself part of the education: negotiating, pitching and disagreeing well with peers from different cultures is exactly the skill a global business career demands.

What students take home

A business plan and a live investor pitch they built from nothing. A working grasp of how finance, strategy and entrepreneurship actually fit together — not as abstractions, but as decisions. And the particular confidence that comes from having stood up in front of a panel in a foreign city and made a case for an idea of their own.

That confidence tends to outlast the week, the trophy and the certificate. It is the real reason to come to Milan.