by Sophie Kuijper Dickson
Shawville
May 13, 2024
A dozen students from Pontiac High School recently spent a week getting a feel for what it would be like to attend university in the nation’s capital.
Each of the 12 grade nine students was chosen by a teacher to participate in the Mini U program at either the University of Ottawa or Carleton University from Apr. 29 to May 3.
They spent the week commuting to the city to attend classes in whichever course they had . . .
been assigned to.
Piper Kelly and Maygen Brazeau, two of the 12 students who participated in the program, spent the week studying animal and human science in the same class.
Kelly said she had not given much thought to pursuing a university degree prior to participating in this program.
“But being there, it changed my mindset a bit. I didn’t want to go to university but now it’s a big consideration.”
For her part, Brazeau has been thinking about university for the past year.
“I really like animals and I want to become a vet, so this class also helped.”
Julia Bernier studied something completely different: youth and the criminal justice system, which was her first choice of course for the week.
“I’ve always wanted to go into something revolving around law, but I didn’t know if I wanted to be a lawyer or something else in the field of crime.”
In her week of university studies, she learned about racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, as well as about some of the factors that might lead youth to become involved in criminal behaviour in the first place.
“I realized that there are some people around here that I know that fit the signs for ‘at-risk’,” Bernier said, adding that she heard from several guest speakers about different ways a community can support youth in this situation.
Ryan Barr, another of the students who dipped his toes into the university life two weeks ago, said while he found his web development class to be “a little boring”, the experience helped clarify that he would rather pursue a career that gets him away from a desk, and that, for him, made it worthwhile.
“Before I did this, I think that I wanted to be a little more on a computer, but after the class I realized I want to do something a little more hands-on, like a trade or something.”
Jo-Anne Brownlee, academic advisor at the high school, has been running the program for some 15 years.
“The whole goal of the program is to get students thinking about whether they could imagine themselves going to university,” Brownlee explained.
She said she encourages grade nine students to participate because if they do want to pursue a university education, they will need to start planning their courses accordingly by the end of that academic year.
“It helps you to decide, ‘Do I like this or do I not like this?’”
Brownlee herself was chosen to participate in the program nearly four decades ago.
“It was the best experience I ever had,” she recalled. “Just to get to do something different that you wouldn’t normally do in high school.”
