Casino games, breathing techniques, and park designing – just a few of the learning activities in which a small group of Grade 9 Pontiac High School (PHS) students participated during their week-long stint at university in Ottawa earlier this month.
From Apr. 28 to May 2, 11 students attended mock-university courses at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, joining high schoolers from across the region to get a taste for university life and begin considering whether it was an opportunity they wanted to pursue.
“This [Mini U] program really inspires them to think about university as an option,” said PHS guidance counselor Jo-Anne Brownlee, who helps organize the school’s contingent of students for the program.
“It kind of creates that spark and gives them that confidence to pursue that as an option, so I have seen students actually open their eyes to university, which may not have happened had they not been selected [for the program].”
This year, Carter Godin, Gavan Needham, Robert Findlay, Abigail Nguyen, Delaney Murdock, Charlotte Dowe, Josephine Hatton, Sheridan Moffatt, Karlee-Rae Brownlee, Emma Mathieu, and Cora-Leigh Vowles were selected by their teachers to partake, chosen because they were deemed to be suitable candidates for missing a week of school, and behaviorally and academically responsible.
Karlee-Rae Brownlee said she was honoured to have been chosen for the program. She spent the week at Ottawa University, where she attended a class on skills for mental success and wellbeing.
“I learned about making goals, having values, and learning about yourself as a person and how to deal with stress and anxiety,” Brownlee said.
“It was a really great experience for me because to be honest, I feel like in my class the kids are a bit rowdy, and in this university setting it was like these kids actually want to learn, you know? I really like the university setting.”
Josephine Hatton tried a statistics and probability class at Carleton for the week, where her class exercise was designing a casino game and using probability to verify whether it would be profitable.
“This was definitely my testing run to see if I wanted to do a degree in math. I knew I wanted to become a lawyer, it was just a question of what my bachelors was going to be,” Hatton said.
“Mini U helped me decide I don’t actually want to do math in my future, but maybe go get my juris doctor and then become a lawyer.”
Sheridan Moffatt said she spent the week studying “adventure, nature, and park design.”
“It was fun to learn about what nature gives us. We probably wouldn’t be able to survive without it. I already knew nature gives us a lot, but to hear how much we need it, and it needs us to help protect it so it doesn’t disintegrate . . . It was really fun to learn all that kind of stuff.”
She said when she first heard about the program from her teachers, it caught her attention as a good way to explore different options for her future. Now, she said she is thinking about looking into a career that gets her outside.
“I might consider something a little more outdoorsy, or something to do with animals, where you’re outside, dealing with natures and animals.”
Brownlee said it is for exactly this reason she encourages students to participate.
“What’s really nice about the Mini U program is that it offers types of courses students would normally not get exposed to in their high school careers, so it’s beneficial for them that way.”
