During the presentation Mr. Josep M. Santos, General Director of La Salle Campus Barcelona, addressed the students in a welcoming speech and highlighted the fact that they were “starting a new chapter in their lives, their university lives, a time for learning and personal development during which they will make new friends and forge professional ties that will last forever.” He also urged new students to remain positive in order to take full advantage of their time on campus. In the event, inspired by Game of Thrones, the houses represented the different campus faculties (Business Management, Animation, Engineering and Architecture) and the students took part in a photocall inspired by the famous “iron throne.”
Although the enrolment period is still open and some students are still completing the admission process, at this day in time, our first-year undergraduate students come from 35 different countries, making up for some 18% of the total intake. With respect to the different undergraduate programmes, the engineering degrees, which have the greatest number of students, 18% of the students are foreign; 55% of the students studying Architecture come from abroad; 30% of the students in the 3 groups of the Business Management programme are foreign, although it has to be said that we have a lot of Spanish students on this course who have also chosen to study in English – 100% of the students will complete this programme exclusively in English-; finally, our animation programme, in its third academic year, also has three groups, although possibly due to its recent creation only 10% of our students are international, something which is expected to change in coming years as the programme will have a more International scope.
Mr. Josep M. Santos, General Director of La Salle Campus Barcelona, during the presentation
During the welcoming ceremony, speakers from different areas of knowledge invited and talked about La Salle’s DNA and how the new students now formed part of life of Campus which means: interdisciplinary, Technology, innovation – in new programmes and methodologies – entrepreneurship through the innovation park La Salle Technova Barcelona, as well as creativity and internationalism. Dr. Marc Arnal, Director of the Architecture Undergraduate programme urged students to “use creativity as a tool to change society,” while Chris Kennett, Director of the Undergraduate Business Programmes, underlined how a “global mentality is essential for any leader.”
At the end of the ceremony, the students created a mural on which they expressed the challenges that have set themselves for their university years and they were also introduced to the various clubs and societies which form part of the Campus.
Before this welcoming ceremony, the new students had the chance to get to know each other in the “Welcome Week” at the beginning of September which included team-building activities to create bonds between students as well as homogenous groups with students from the four different programmes. All the new students took part in a campus tour which was packed with workshops and different activities.