Yesterday, May 11th, fifteen high school students presented their results on the University College Twente (UCT) Masterclass ‘Colonizing Mars’ offered by Pre-U. Demi Vonk, a second-year student, and Wessel van de Sande, alumnus, organised this masterclass and will explain how it was.
“Pre-U is an organisation stimulating high school students to get to know the University of Twente and invites them into the university. With the UCT masterclass, we aim to fit one semester into a 10-week program. Within these ten weeks, we try to teach the students about the core values within ATLAS: group work, critical thinking, doing research, design, providing feedback, and the combination between engineering and social science.
Within Pre-U, we were supported through workshops and presentations about providing education, but we also had a lot of freedom in organising our own program. However, you learn mostly through experience and each week we could improve ourselves in teaching and the organisation of the workshop. In total, we organised six workshops in which we helped the students with questions regarding colonising Mars; how will the flight be, how can we survive the air pressure on Mars, how will we feel when moving to Mars, which techniques are necessary?
We enjoyed developing the content of the workshops, although every teacher would agree that interacting with the students and seeing them learn is the most fun to do. We also tried to show them what it is like to be an ATLAS student and help them understand how it is to be part of our community.
Today the students presented their solutions for self-defined problems. They showed critical thinking and gave very interesting presentations that were provided with feedback by an independent jury consisting of two ATLAS students. Each student got a certificate and we also handed out some awards. Next study year, in November, another UCT Masterclass will be offered by ATLAS students.”
University College Twente offers a unique bachelor’s programme, Technology, Liberal, Arts and Sciences, to top students. Visit the University College Twente website for more information about the college and Technology, Liberal, Arts and Sciences website for more information about the bachelor program. Or visit us during the open day, a student-for-a-day or an insight-day.
