Ex-students

Hello everybody!

I’m here to persuade everybody on how important is to go out of the place you come from, and I will try by means of my own experience.

18 years old, it’s time to leave high school, it’s time of big changes, it’s time of being a bit lost, to have doubts… but that’s normal, we’ve been all there. I’m so happy that I just had something clear in my mind: I want to study and learn much more, and I want to do it out of Cantabria, this is too small for me.

So I went to the other corner of Spain, Granada … that was like travelling to another country, even the language was different !

I didn’t know anybody before going there, but that was not a problem; I began living in a students dormitory, with a lot of people in my situation.. Everything is new, the place, the people, the university … and you feel like you can do whatever you want, with no parents surrounding you and telling you everytime what time you should come home. You have all the time just for yourself.

So that year my life changed, I started Architecture, and at the beginning it was a shock; I found it hard the first few months, but then you get used to everything, and now (5 years later) I think it was the best I could choose.

So four years there and… it became small for me again! But that’s not a problem, cause from the University, you have a lot of opportunities to travel and go abroad, so I decided to spend one year with Erasmus in another country. And I wanted a capital city, and a place far away from Spain (‘cause if you look at the map, we are in the very corner of Europe). So here I am in Viena, capital city of Austria, a small country from which I hadn’t heard so much before, but placed in a very interesting point of the map; it has 8 frontiers with countries that sound as far away as Eslovenia or the Czech Republic.. the door between west and eastern Europe.

And even if I wasn’t an expert in German language (that’s what they speak here), I didn’t want the language to be an obstacle, and you can always manage with English, but that’s really true, if you don’t know English… you will miss meeting more that one half of the world population.

I’m a new person now, after 5 years out, and I really don’t want to come back to Cantabria for the moment (I’m going to continue my studies in Barcelona next year), the world is too big to stay there!

I hope I have at least made you think about other opportunities. And I hope you will make a good decision then !

Good bye and good luck !

Clara del Cerro

Hello boys and girls of Nueve Valles. With these lines I wish I could describe a little how it was my return to our school six years later, this time as a teacher, which is a pride for me to be the first ex student who returns to teach.

When I finished High School, I started Geography studies at the University of Cantabria in 2004. I was sad for the wonderful years I had spent in it, the best years of my life until today. In college I spent five years in which I made many friends, enjoy studying and then I graduated, in September 2009. Then, I decided to become a teacher.

At that moment, again come to mind the years I studied at the Nueve Valles, and began to dream of returning to the School, but this time from the other side. And the truth, I had created expectations that were small since the first day I arrived.

That day was February 17^th. The first three days were a breaking the ice experience, but, I knew well the High School and teachers, so it wasn’t a problem.

On March 1^st , we began our second practice period, this time for two months, and from there on I started liking each day of being a teacher. Everybody from the very beginning behaved great with us, and I also was very lucky to be welcomed in a department (Geography and History), where the atmosphere is extraordinary, with Paco, José Luis, Álvarez, De Cos, Roman, and above all, Maria Eugenia, my tutor in these practices to which I will be forever be grateful.

It is a department that shows the good relationship existing among them. It's something that can only be appreciated from within and be one more, as I have been these months.

During one and a half month I have know how everything works at school.

The first day I started quite nervous, but quickly ended. The pupils made everything easier, paying to my explanations, answering when being asked, satisfied with what I asked them to do, and so on. As the days passed I found myself more comfortable and more willing to teach.

After two months at the school on 30^th April, my practice ended. A sad day because I would feel forever, that this has been one of the best experiences in my life.

This is the summary of my experience in our High School as a teacher. In Nueve Valles School I understood and learned why I want to be a teacher, and that teaching is the way I want to continue in my professional life.

If you want advice, make good use of the time you are in the High School in every way, and learn everything you can from your teachers, it will be a lot.

Julio Ruiz de Salazar