385 students to participate in Campus Ítaca 2017

The socio-educational programme Campus Ítaca will take place at the UAB Bellaterra Campus during the months of June and July. The aim of the programme is to give more opportunities to adolescents from unfavourable economic backgrounds and good grades to encourage them to continue with their studies.

15/06/2017

Starting on 26 June and lasting until 14 July, the UAB will be welcoming 385 secondary school students from more than 30 different towns from the province of Barcelona. Students will come to the UAB in two different sessions: the fist will be made up of 190 students who will visiting the UAB from 26 June to 4 July, and the second group will come from 6 to 14 July.

The Campus Ítaca programme is one of the socio-educational programmes with more history at the UAB. Since 2004, over 5,000 students have participated in the programme, most of them from secondary schools of the Vallès Occidental region. The persons selected to participate in Campus Ítaca all have a similar profile: an economically complicated family situation which may tip the balance towards working instead of continuing their studies, the need for adult role models to encourage them to stay in school and communicate this to their family, and a positive academic attitude.

The Campus Ítaca aims to motivate these students who are about to begin their last year of secondary school to continue studying. Throughout the two weeks, students will combine leisure and sports activities with academic activities organised by UAB teaching staff. They will be divided into groups of 12 and will work on different activities throughout the day: treasure hunts, research activities, debates, unsolved cases, etc.

This year there will be new activities such as the one organised by the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting in which students will learn the importance of speaking in public and also be able to practice three modalities of interpreting (whispering, consecutive and simultaneous); at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, students will be able to research different issues being worked on at the UAB and related to the environment. At the Faculty of Communication Studies they will be able to participate in the activity ‘Creatius al poder! Fem falques de ràdio’, where they will be asked to create a radio advert covering all of the characteristics given by the company. Activities will also take place in the fields of veterinary medicine, toxicology and optics.

This year Campus Ítaca will hold two closing sessions, one for each two-week period. The closing session is a very important part of the Campus Ítaca. It is when students are able to share their experiences and show the results of their work by presenting the research projects each group participated in.