The author describes the to levels introduced by the reform of the Italian university: a three-year degree in Language Mediation and a subsequent two-year specialised degree in translation. The author stresses the need for language mediators to learn how to search for information form all available sources. This should be taught right form the first level to provide the essential framework for acquiring specialised knowledge. Though the main emphasis should always be on translation training, given the students' linguistic competence at the first level, there must also be a measure of language teaching support. As both literary and technical translation are actually subsumed under the same specialised degree, Soffritti argues that each institution should outline specific courses of study according to local needs. Finally, in view of the possible clash of the notion of quality in the world of academia and in the translation market, he argues both for exporting academic translation models and for the importance of practical internships as meeting points between academia and the market itself.