One of the most anticipated student events, the Activation School, took place last weekend at the Regatta Hotel. Volga Region University students were immersed, trained, mentored and simply entertained.
The two-day intensive from the organising committee, which was the student council of the university, the department for social and educational work and, of course, the university administration, began with ordinary moments. Check-in to the hotel, an organizational meeting with the rules of stay at the Actvia shift and presentation of the first day's programme by Lenar Galiev, the head of the student council.
The Vice-Rector for Administration, Social Development and Youth Policy Natalia Grechannikova was invited to give a welcoming speech.
"We are very happy to welcome both new and familiar faces here. Today you have excellent opportunities for development at our university - we have the BRICS-2024 Games and many other new and interesting things to look forward to. Throughout the whole School of Activation your main task is to absorb everything like a sponge, because during these two days you will get a concentration of the most useful things in an interesting and lively interpretation," Natalia Grechannikova said.
Participants got acquainted with each other, memorising each other's names in the format of games, communicated and shared facts about themselves within the framework of team building training from Liaisan Vafina and Polina Kuzmina.
The educational block was opened by Polina Sarvilina, who spoke about the structure of student self-government. The main aspects of the speech were the principles of stages - in what case it is advisable to go to the elections and in what order to go through all stages of student life from a participant to a leader. There was also a question-and-answer session with the current student council - the active members told their stories about how they got into the student council, what they do in it, about difficulties and solutions to problems.
After a short break, the participants were invited to a lecture "Value Orientation of a Modern Student" by Polina Sarvilina. The talk was about the most important values that one should adhere to in one's work and life in general. Among them are justice, patriotism, humanism, mercy, strong family.
In continuation Polina Kuzmina presented the topic "How to find what you like? Project ideas." It is about the importance of choosing the main activity for oneself in higher education and beyond.
"You can try yourself everywhere, but it is very important to define for yourself one or two leading directions, - notes Polina. - This will help you not to spread yourself thin on something that may not be of interest to you in the end".
She also told us what mistakes are most often made when creating a project and how to formalise an idea.
Rector of the University of Sport and Tourism Rafis Burganov became the guest of honour of the School. In the format of "meeting without ties" the head of the university answered a lot of questions, among them there were questions about professional competences, recreation, childhood and youth of the rector, favourite mentor, attitude to the student activists. The rector gladly shared his experience, made jokes and gave admonitions.
"The most important thing is that you study with pleasure - without this there will be no success in work and study. Get knowledge and do everything that makes you competitive!", - emphasised Rafis Burganov.
After dinner, the participants went to the show "Intuition" with the participation of the directorate of institutes, teaching staff and employees of the social and educational department. The task of the students was to guess which facts from the life of employees belonged to whom, after which the characters shared the full content of the whole story. The students got closer to the university administration and learnt a little more about them.
At the end of the day there were competitions in the teams "Just dance battle" and "Karaoke battle".
Then everyone gathered to share their impressions from the day. Newly minted activists told what was new to them and what experience and knowledge they had gained.
"The participants are very cool, energised. You can see that they care about a lot of problems that probably even current fourth-year students did not care about in their time. You can see the qualitative growth of the generation as a whole, - shared her impressions of the first day Polina Kuzmina, a member of the organising committee of the event. - It is immediately obvious from some of the guys that they are leaders, and all the participants have a great future. The day is very intense, there is qualitative and constructive feedback from the activists - this is undoubtedly pleasing".
The second day of the intensiv started with an early rise and a fun exercise with Vsevolod Alexandrov. The grandiose plans for the day were announced and a musical warm-up was held.
It started with the continuation of Polina Kuzmina's lecture on how to find what you like. Special attention was paid to the problems and relevance of projects, the most common mistakes in formulating project goals, objectives and results were highlighted.
Lenar Galiev also spoke about working on projects - his topic was "Goal-setting and problem-solving". The participants in teams identified a problem and prepared a project idea to solve it. The speaker voiced the possibility of implementing projects on a grant basis.
Then there was a meeting with psychologist Pavel Zinoviev. The topics for conversation were relationships, self-search, self-identity and self-esteem. Then the participants moved on to a question-and-answer format: more than fifteen questions were asked on a variety of topics.
After the lunch break the activists had a meeting with the student sports club "Winged Leopards", the speaker was Anna Starodubtseva. She simply and understandably told about the opportunities opened at joining, a brief acquaintance with the head and activities of the club at the university and beyond. Then they competed a little and got deserved prizes.
Then the participants were divided into teams for the strategic game "Student Campus". Each team is a department responsible for a certain area of campus life. The task is to fulfil the tasks within their area of responsibility, to build the necessary buildings, sports grounds and facilities so that the whole infrastructure functions properly.
And after dinner the most creative event of the Activation School began - skits on values. Each team chose their favourite quote and presented it in the format of a mini-production with costumes, music and props.
The results of the School of Assets were summed up and memorable gifts were awarded. We waited for the most sentimental and emotional event, “Without Light,” when the participants thanked everyone who was memorable to them during the intensive by tying strings on their wrists. The warmest and kindest words were said, the university’s activists became even closer to each other. The farewell point was the disco.
“I would like to say words of gratitude to the organizers and management of the university. I would like to especially highlight Lenar Galiev and Polina Sarvilina - they had a very big influence on me, I tried to adopt their experience as much as possible. Thanks to the motivation that came from them, I really want to move forward, - Elizaveta Miryugina, a first-year student, shares her impressions. - Now I am sure that I want to gain more and more knowledge, improve my skills and move up the career ladder. I advise everyone to attend this kind of event at least once, because they provide a huge incentive to continue their development and growth, charge you with energy and bring a lot of new cool acquaintances.”
Text: Ulyana Shuklina, student media center
