18,000 UOC students set to graduate in original hybrid ceremonies, combining in-person and virtual participation

In the coming weeks, 18,000 UOC students from the two years graduating during the pandemic will attend an awards ceremony with a markedly hybrid character. For the first time in the history of the UOC, and coinciding with its 25th anniversary celebrations, it will be possible to attend the graduation event in person (in Barcelona on 5 and 19 February and in Madrid on 7 March) or via Zoom.

Due to pandemic restrictions, the dynamics of face-to-face events are changing to ensure that both participants attending in person and those who connect via Zoom can get involved and interact rather than simply following the event online. Students who come to the ceremony will receive a bag containing a cap, a commemorative poster and five emoticons for use during the event, while virtual participants using Zoom will also be able to simulate putting on their caps through a special mechanism. At this event, graduate testimonies play a leading role: this time, there will be face-to-face and virtual speeches. The other students from these two years are asked to make a thirty-second recording of themselves, explaining what graduating means to them.

The Gaudeamus igitur is a central part of the ceremony. This year, as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations, the UOC community has transformed the traditional academic anthem into an original, cutting-edge video concept. A series of drones have captured images from several cities around the world, metaphorically connecting the spirit of the UOC's students: united on a single campus from multiple locations around the world.

Stories of success and determination

The UOC has more than 95,000 graduates residing in more than 100 countries around the world. Their personal and academic profiles are extremely diverse yet they all share a common nexus: their drive to work hard and overcome any obstacles to their online education. Proof of this is the following five stories from students who will be taking part in the upcoming graduation events.

Eight semesters of learning in ten different countries

"In just eight semesters, I have taken the UOC with me to ten countries, four companies and six jobs. We have taken five important professional and personal steps together. It has been a great travel companion: together, we have shown that our university can train top-level analysts, supervisors, executives and technical professionals who work and lead within top companies; that with the determination and effort to overcome obstacles, any of our classmates can have a dream, and that their studies at our university will get them where they want to be," said Enrique Aguirre. He made the leap from a small business to his first international experience in Warsaw, at US Bank: "A banking titan with over 60,000 employees, which I entered through a side door armed with a degree and the thirst for much more. In that competitive environment, I realized that I needed to further my university studies, and I chose the UOC for the prestige conveyed by its students and for the possibility of combining it with my day-to-day work," said the Business Administration and Management graduate.

And he added, "it gave me the tools to get promoted three times in less than two years and to receive, before reaching the halfway point of my degree, an offer to work in quantitative finance, a sector that I had always seen as a dream." He worked as a financial risk manager at the European fintech company Kantox. But the meteoric rise of this former student does not end here: "During the final semesters of my course, I was offered a position at Glovo, leading one of its financial and operational risk areas." All this academic and professional progress "changed my way of seeing things and boosted my confidence in my possibilities. This change gave me the opportunity to dream bigger and raise my sights, which ultimately led me to pursue one of my greatest dreams as a youngster: to be an air controller." And so he did. He believes that his time at the UOC was undoubtedly "one of the keys to who I am today".

Education as a way out of the crisis

The 2008 crisis crushed many dreams, and Jesús Martín and his partner were no exception to this. They were partners in a small, family-run metallurgical business that brought them to financial ruin. They were forced to start over. "Five years later, in 2013, after passing a series of civil servant exams for the Provincial Council of Girona, we laid the first stone to rebuild our family project. I was 39 years old at the time and I knew that my future would be tied to a good education. I started to study law and was followed four years later by my partner," said Martín. He was promoted at work faster than you could ever have imagined: "I graduated in January and sat the civil servant exams in September. There's no doubt in my mind that my legal training was instrumental in getting it."

Knowledge and professional growth are not the only things that Martín and his family have achieved with their studies: "We learned about the Second Chance Act, a very necessary but often overlooked mechanism, which allowed us to turn the page on the company’s bankruptcy by exonerating our debts. It has been a costly, three-year process but thanks to what we have learned we were able to deal with it for the most part by ourselves. Their son Dani has just enrolled at the UOC in Digital Design and Creation. "For us, learning has led to personal growth in every area. Nowadays, our philosophy is based on self-esteem and the belief that hard work will be rewarded," he said.

A patriarchal system denied her an education and now, at age sixty, she is graduating in Business Studies

"I was the only daughter in a modest family. I had three brothers. I loved to study, especially maths, because I liked to work things out and find solutions to the problems. But when I finished my compulsory schooling, my parents wanted me to go out to work. In their eyes, girls weren't meant to study, because they would only get married later and it would all have been for nothing,", said Maria Lluïsa Cornellà, graduate in Business Administration and Management, who is now sixty years old. "I fought back against this argument. I worked on the weekends and calculated that I was earning enough money to do a vocational training module. I would have loved to have had an upper secondary school education, but there was no college where I lived and we had to travel to get there.

The bus to the vocational training school was free, but the college bus was not. My parents gave in because it didn't cost them anything." Cornellà thought that her success – she won a diploma for best student at the school! – would make her parents proud and that they would agree to let her continue her studies. But that was not the case: "They said: 'what good will it do you?' I tore up my diploma, admitted defeat and went to work in a factory. My parents were happy: they could spend their savings on my brothers' education now. But I never forgot about it."

With her children all grown up, she revisited her dream and did the entrance course for over-45-year-olds. Thirty years had passed since she last studied, but she passed the course and it gave her the encouragement she needed to get into higher education. She enrolled at the UOC: "At first, I said to myself that as long as I passed everything with 5 out of 10 that would be enough, but as my marks started getting better and better, I found myself spending more time on it every day. Part-time only, because I still work full-time and I also look after my father-in-law, who has dementia, at home, but with determination I managed to fulfil my dream," she said.

Success after a long, obstacle-ridden course

"I have a serious degenerative physical disability (congenital muscular dystrophy) which makes me very reliant on others for my self-care and initially posed many obstacles to travelling to a city far from home without social assistance. But I am brave and I am a fighter, and I constantly push myself every single day. I knew that I had to get a university education if I was to have a profession that would give me personal and financial autonomy, to ensure that I was not so reliant on government benefits," said Montserrat Grau. So, in the 2005-2006 academic year, her story at the UOC began, reaching its happy ending fifteen years later: "These years have been filled with the drive to achieve my dream of becoming a psychologist".

Grau was spurred on by "the desire to be useful to society and to contribute my own grain of salt to pay back everything that I have received and still receive in government aid." Now that I have finished my degree, I have come up against new challenges due to my poor health, as a result of which I cannot risk offering psychotherapy sessions. However, despite all the difficulties, which are increasingly evident, I do everything I can to maintain and take care of my health. I stay positive and don't rule out taking a chance and offering sessions in the future. I want to earn my living, I don't want to be idle. I am also thinking about continuing my studies by enrolling on a master's degree."

Solving family problems in Uganda and South Sudan

"For me, the UOC has been a home away from home. It is a university that places value on humanity, with its inclusive and student-centred approach. I felt assured of being respected and treated as an individual. In fact, despite my poor health, insecurity and the challenges of the Internet, the UOC took me by the hand to complete my studies. At the UOC, I have found a team of professional, caring, attentive and patient advisers. With what I learned, I was able to use my mediation skills to solve family problems during the Covid-19 years in Uganda and South Sudan in groups and settings such as hospitals, communities and refugee or displaced persons' camps. I understand that conflicts are part of human existence, but we all have a responsibility to prevent and resolve them," said Judith Draleru Maturu, who graduated with a Master's Degree in Conflict and the Post-graduate Degree in Crisis Management and Armed Conflict and has expressed an interest in carrying out doctoral studies on peace.

The public health expert said that "I needed a course to understand and analyse conflicts to help many more girls, women, boys and men who do not get justice and are seeking medical care." During her studies, she faced one of the most difficult times of her life, but "the UOC kept my spirits up. In October 2018, I had an accident. I was hospitalized and only recovered four months later. Again, on 27 November 2019, I underwent major spinal surgery. The teaching staff patiently supported me. They wrote messages of hope and extended my deadlines so that I could complete my tasks. As soon as I recovered from the spinal surgery, I was affected by multiple bilateral breast cysts with severe pain and discharge. The UOC rescheduled my payment and extended the grant. I cried tears of joy after the defence of my thesis. I felt that a great load had been taken off my shoulders and I felt triumphant," said the student, who was a UNITAR scholar.