South Ural State University together with Lyceum No.11 of the city of Chelyabinsk arranged field trips for schoolchildren to hold outdoors master classes in Lesnaya Zastava Children’s Camp. Specialists from SUSU Schools and Institutes showed the soon-to-be university applicants how and what is studied by students of the university.
This isn’t the first time that such a short-term field trip is arranged for schoolchildren by the university: this format of vocational-oriented activity was tested by SUSU and the Lyceum No.11 last year and turned out to be very in-demand. This time, specialists of the university held interactive classes for 8th-grade students of various specialisations.
“Last year, we arranged Scientific Vacations in Nauka Recreation Camp (which is part of the SUSU’s “Nepryakhino” Sports and Recreation Complex), so this year we decided to hold educational workshops. They are intended for early vocational orientation, so that children could choose their vector of professional development beforehand and get engaged in the atmosphere of studying at SUSU. Here, children can learn about educational profiles through interesting master classes which contain elements of educational modules and include an entertaining outdoors programme,” said project supervisor, employee of the SUSU Faculty of Pre-University Education, Ksenia Kirichek.
Specialists of various SUSU subdivisions told schoolchildren about specificities in the activity of lawyers, economists, managers, historians, chemists, specialists in the sphere of food technology and biotechnology, and engineers. Moreover, SUSU lecturers prepared interesting lectures intended to provide schoolchildren with the knowledge necessary for a successful study at the university. In particular, the lecture of Natalia Forsova, Associate Professor at the Department of Russian and Foreign History of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, regarded the history of changing names of our country.
“History is a school subject which should be studied by any well-educated person. I told them about the history of changes in the names of Russia in a retrospective, starting from the Kievan Rus and up until the present time. Within this period, our country has been renamed 10 times. Also, my goal was to help them understand the history as a process, because many children often lack this knowledge. They expressed their interest and could answer many questions, which is a good sign.”
Head of the Digital Communications Office at the Marketing and Strategic Communications Department, Director of the Production Photo Studio Laboratory of the Faculty of Journalism, Oleg Igoshin held a master class on photography.
“During the master class, students tried taking pictures of each other using professional equipment and the additional light sources. They could see the way the picture changes depending on the side from which the light falls, took a few photos using different lighting, and simply had fun and acted as photographers. If they get interested in such kind of activity, they will be able to get enrolled to the SUSU Faculty of Journalism where they will be taught photography among everything else.”
Many participants of the master classes appreciated the chance to learn something new in the sphere of photography. Student of Lyceum No.11 Daria Valyanova shared her emotions:
“I like photography; my Dad has professional equipment, he used to be a photographer. I think that the sphere of photography is very popular and many types of activity are connected with it, including advertising and so on. I think, these classes will come in handy in the future, and probably I will be applying to the Faculty of Journalism.”
Short-term outdoors workshops allow university applicants start planning their student life and make up their minds regarding the most interesting specialty.
“So far, I am not familiar with SUSU, but my relatives used to study here and participated in Zvezda Olympiad arranged by the university. I am still thinking on what field of study to choose; we still have time to make up our minds,” said one of the field trip participants, student Diana Popova.
Camp counselors represented by university students of various majors made their contribution to arrangement of the event. For the second year in a row, they help arranging leisure activities and hold talks about the university’s specificities and opportunities of self-fulfillment in the frameworks of extracurricular activities, creativity, sport, student self-government, etc.
Let us note that SUSU gives schoolchildren and their parents the chance to learn more about specificities of study, advantages of the university, and the prospects of employment after graduation during the Open House Days and within other projects arranged for future university applicants. More details are available on the website of the Faculty of Pre-University Education.