The University of La Serena successfully completed the pilot version of the Intensive Academic Season (TAI), which allowed 175 students from the four faculties to take subjects, thus improving their chances of obtaining a timely degree.

The Institution was able to carry out this summer programming, thanks to the fact that the second semester of 2023 developed normally, with plans to repeat the instance in the month of August 2024.

The pilot plan of the Intensive Academic Season (TAI) of the University of La Serena was rated as a successful process and with a good level of participation and performance on the part of the students, an instance that in its first version allowed 175 students to attend. so-called critical subjects, intensively between January 2 and 25, 2024.

The measure - which was born as an alternative to support the educational path of the students, their curricular progress in the subjects of their teaching program based on what is indicated in the update of the ULS Educational Model - allowed over 95% of the participants who were part of this pilot version, managed to pass the subjects classified as critical taught during the second semester of 2023.

Regarding the work carried out during this first version of the TAI, the Academic Vice-Rector, Dr. Alejandra Torrejón, valued the good results of this process and highlighted that “in a preliminary evaluation of the implementation of this pilot plan, we must highlight the interest of the students to participate, the willingness of a team of academics of excellence to provide this special support in the training processes, the positive results obtained by the students and, above all, the effort and drive put in by the students even when it was intensive and “He demanded 100% attendance.”

Torrejón added that “this additional effort deployed marks an example of the joint effort to improve academic progression indicators, so necessary to achieve the new accreditation standards at the institutional level.”

For his part, the Director of ULS Teaching, Jaime Rodríguez, highlighted the work carried out to start this pilot plan, indicating that “work was done more than three months in advance and it was presented in the different institutional instances, since this involves an important effort on the part of the institution to support students in their educational career and thus be able to improve the academic progression indicators that our institution has.”

To carry out this first version, important work was carried out with the academics who were part of this process, who were trained to plan subjects in short periods of intensive training, capable of responding positively to the institutional training process, which was in charge of the Teaching Improvement Unit (UMD).

The teacher who taught the TAI Differential Calculus subject for the different civil engineering, Claudia Vargas, positively valued both the work delivered by the university, as well as the effort and participation of the students, highlighting that “this was a tremendous alternative that the institution generated for students who failed a subject so that they can avoid a delay in their curricular advancement.”

And he added that “for me as a teacher, participating in this pilot version of the TAI was very motivating, since we were able to achieve tremendous learning as a course, the students came motivated, we worked with a very dynamic methodology allowing them to take advantage of each of the classes, managing to level and advance the contents of the course. I feel that this was a super positive process and the students have valued it that way.”

Finally, Manuel Velázquez, a second-year student of the Mechanical Civil Engineering program, thanked the university for the opportunity and highlighted that this process “was quite important because it gave me the option of passing the differential calculus branch and at the same time reinforcing knowledge.” that had been left half-finished last semester, and I can say that this was a very exhaustive experience but that it was 100% worth it.”

It should be noted that, based on the results delivered by this pilot version, the university hopes to continue working on the incorporation of Intensive Academic Seasons during both semesters, broadly covering the critical subjects of the different careers taught by the university.