It has been a very intense week so far here at University CEU Cardenal Herrera as we have officially welcomed our new students to our community, the starting signal for the Academic Year 2015/16: three campuses, more than 470 new international students and a calendar full of activities…thank you to everyone who has made it possible!
Welcome Days are a classic in the first days of September, a week of orientation and events for newly accepted sudents who start their academic journey with us in one of our official degrees. They will be spending from 4 to 6 years with us so they deserve a warm welcome to help them hit the ground in this new and unknown environment, don’t you think?
International Welcome
Our Welcome Days started on September 7 with a special welcome to our international students, with a record-breaking number of attendees and nationalities this year: more than 470 students from Taiwan, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Colombia or Sweden among others!
You could feel a bit of nostalgia and nervousness in their faces which were rapidly turned into excitement and happiness when they finally met our International team and [ especially ] their new classmates. The schedule of activities included several informative sessions and presentations to introduce them to the University and prepare them for their lives here.
The day started with students proceeding to the different registration desks that had been installed on the first floor of Luis Campos Górriz building, where they got an update on their documentation status and received a welcome bag with some goodies in it! The registration was followed by several sessions designed to introduce them to the campus and the special services offered to international students, ending with a tour of the university where they finally met their coordinators.
Meanwhile, their parents and relatives attended a special session carried out by representatives of the university, where they were introduced to our university’s internationalization strategy and integration plan, a more tailored approached to their specific information needs.
Campus Life
Welcome Days events were followed on September 8 and 9 with a wide range of fun activities designed to introduce everyone to the campus, the city of Valencia and to foster their integration with the Spanish students. The new Campus Life team that has recently been created will be in charge of organizing activities throughout the year in order to make all students feel more comfortable and oriented in this new environment.
In fact, facilitating their academic and social integration at our University will be one of the key factors for all of us here, so be prepared for a year full of fun things to do!
You can see all the photographs of these days in HQ in our flickr gallery!
A Falla on campus?
If you come to study to Valencia, you need to know what the Fallas festival is about. Being the biggest and most important festival in the region, we all think that you should start getting familiar with the concept: it is fire, music, tradition, satire…it is a cultural and artistic expression of our character!
And to make you part of this big fiesta, our university counts on the invaluable support of one of the most renowned institutions in the city: the multiple award-winning Falla Na Jordana, who came to our Welcome Days and have developed a calendar of activities for this year in which our international students are invited to participate: did you see the Fallera Mayor, all dressed up in a traditional dress and speaking Valencià, our own regional language?
Keep an eye on our Social Media channels because we will be informing you periodically on the different activities that Na Jordana and University CEU Cardenal Herrera have prepared for you!
Also in Elche and Castellón!
Although our biggest campus is located in Valencia (Alfara del Patriarca and Moncada), we must not forget that our university has two other important academic centres in the region: one in Castellón and another one in Elche. Students were also welcomed in those campuses, which have also gone through tremendous changes during the last years: more than 50 French-speaking students have started this year our degree in Physiotherapy, another new record for us!
What’s next?
Now that you are officially a student of University CEU Cardenal Herrera, you probably wonder about what happens next. Apart from participating in our campus life and getting involved in all the cultural, orientation and sports activities that we offer you, we are sorry to announce the “bad” news: you will have to study hard! But don’t worry, you have a lot of resources to help you through the process: our website, our Library, our staff…we will make sure that your first year with us is a big success!
“Every beginning is cheerful…”, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), German poet.
