Insights for Prospective Students

This is probably the question I receive most often from students who are considering the Master’s degree in HPC Engineering.

And it is almost never asked in a neutral way. It usually comes with a concern: what if this programme is too specific, and therefore limiting, especially in terms of career opportunities?

It is a completely understandable doubt. When a degree programme has such a distinctive name, it is natural to wonder whether the path might be too specialised, and therefore restrictive.

Over the years, however, what I have seen in my conversations with students — and later, while following them during their studies — is that this initial perception often does not hold up in practice.

Let us start from a key point

When this doubt comes up, I always start from a very simple but important point: HPC Engineering is a Master’s degree formally included in the LM-32 degree class, which in the Italian university system corresponds to Computer Engineering.

This may sound like a formal detail, but it is not.

It means that the programme is fully rooted in the field of computer engineering. Graduates in HPC Engineering have the background of computer engineers and can access many of the same professional areas as more “generalist” profiles.

What changes is not the foundation — which remains broad and solid — but the fact that this foundation is combined with a specialisation in technologies that are becoming increasingly central today.

And this is where the perspective often changes.

It does not narrow your profile. It strengthens it.

What I see in our students’ paths is that HPC does not “close” a profile. Rather, it gives it greater depth. Graduates from this programme do not only acquire computer engineering skills. They integrate them with multidisciplinary training that allows them to work on:

• high-performance computing
• parallel architectures
• distributed systems
• hardware-software co-design
• large-scale AI
• computational modelling and simulation
• numerical methods
• emerging technologies such as quantum computing

How “vertical” is the programme? That depends on you

Within this strong identity, there are many different ways to build your own profile.

Some students choose a very technical and specialised path, for example in architectures, accelerators, or quantum computing.
Others work at the intersection between HPC and artificial intelligence, addressing the scalability challenges of modern models.
Others use these skills as a tool to work in complex application domains, from physics to bioengineering and large-scale data analysis.

This variety is possible because students actively shape their own study path.

The study plan is almost always personalised and, especially in the second year, the availability of elective credits and a freely chosen thesis — including in interdisciplinary contexts — allows students to orient their path in a way that is highly consistent with their interests.

A different starting point, an equally solid outcome

Another aspect I consider particularly relevant is that this model also works well for students with different academic backgrounds. The presence of diverse incoming skills is certainly an added value of this Master’s programme. These strengths are brought together and shared, enriching the overall learning experience. This variety emerges especially in projects and group activities, where different perspectives and skills become a concrete resource for collaborative work.

Over the years, we have had students from computer engineering, but also from other engineering fields, mathematics, physics, applied statistics and, more recently, AI and data science programmes.

What happens is that each student starts from what they know and takes it to a different level: more scalable, more complex, and closer to real-world problems.

The result is not a standardised profile. It is a set of different profiles, sharing one distinctive competence: the ability to address problems where computation is not a secondary element, but the central issue.

The structure of the programme is designed precisely to support students in building their own educational path. This approach allows them to explore, understand where they want to position themselves, and develop a specialist profile that is conscious, coherent and well-grounded.

What student data tell us

Beyond these structural considerations, it is also useful to look at the data. Graduate surveys show a very high level of satisfaction: 3.4 out of 4. Most students say that, if they could go back, they would choose this programme again. Satisfaction is also very high with regard to the specialist skills acquired in the chosen track: 3.6 out of 4.

This is consistent with a programme that is not only technically solid, but also leaves room for students to build a strong and coherent professional profile.

So, is it too specific?

It depends on what you are looking for.

If your goal is a completely generalist programme, there are Master’s degrees with a more “neutral” structure.

If, instead, you are looking for a solid foundation in information engineering, strong exposure to advanced technologies, the opportunity to work on complex and interdisciplinary computational problems, and at the same time some flexibility in shaping your own specialisation, then HPC Engineering is an option that does not restrict your possibilities. It expands them and offers competitive advantage.

In recent years, I have seen this change increasingly clearly in the needs expressed by companies and research environments. The role of supercomputing has become more and more central in many areas: from the exponential growth of data to be analysed at real-world scale, to the increasing complexity of artificial intelligence models, and to the scientific and industrial challenges that require ever more sophisticated simulations and high computational capacity.

In this context, HPC-related skills are becoming increasingly sought after, both in research and in industry.

HPC Engineering was created precisely with this aim: to respond to this evolution and train professionals capable of addressing new challenges. It is one of the first degree programmes designed to prepare graduates to tackle complex computational problems, combining computer engineering skills with specific training in high-performance computing and quantum computing.

This translates into a competitive advantage for our graduates. They do not only have a broad and solid foundation, but also distinctive skills in methods and technologies that are becoming increasingly pivotal in advancing research and innovation. In other words, this is not only about choosing an interesting programme today. It is about building a profile that will remain relevant in professional and technological contexts that are evolving rapidly.

---

If you are considering HPC Engineering and would like to discuss your specific situation, you can contact me directly at: federico.schiepatti@polimi.it