A project collects studentsʼ autobiographies to understand and know better university life

The project encourages UB students to describe how their university life is.
The project encourages UB students to describe how their university life is.
Research
(01/08/2014)

The lecturer Anna Caballé asked her students to write a short autobiography. This initiative was the departure point of the successful research project Autobiografías de estudiantes: una escritura immediata, developed by the Biographical Studies Unit of the University of Barcelona and funded by the General Directorate of Scientific and Technical Research (DGICYT) in 2010.

The project encourages UB students to describe how their university life is.
The project encourages UB students to describe how their university life is.
Research
01/08/2014

The lecturer Anna Caballé asked her students to write a short autobiography. This initiative was the departure point of the successful research project Autobiografías de estudiantes: una escritura immediata, developed by the Biographical Studies Unit of the University of Barcelona and funded by the General Directorate of Scientific and Technical Research (DGICYT) in 2010.

Anna Caballé, leader of the project, explains that “at first, the aim was to study the texts collected in 2007, a corpus named Vita Studens that enabled us to analyse studentsʼ daily life through their own texts”. “The idea —she adds— was to bring young students closer to autobiographical texts, a genre usually associated to old writers”. The project is based on the idea that young people, despite their short life, are marked by questions related to identity, which is fundamental for autobiography. “It is about focusing the genre on the future, not in the past, as it is usually done. Autobiographical writing is a new teaching tool”, affirms Caballé.

Surprisingly, the corpus reveals that family is one of the most important aspects in studentsʼ lives. Caballé points out that “students mention their families constantly. Most of them refer to it as something positive and encouraging; others consider that relatives are so much protective and restrict their maturation process, and some of them point out that family results in toxic situations (alcoholism, unemployment, disease, indifference, conflict, etc.)". Moreover, some students underline that without their relatives it would be impossible to study:

Here I am, happy but employed again. I am determined to sort all difficulties. I am going to spend all the unemployment benefit enjoying my life as student. Itʼll be bloody because I am living again at my parentsʼ home. I cannot ask for more; they are going to help me finishing my studies. I left them because I wanted to work and leave home. Now, I come back home, I quit and I take up studies. Today, I would light a fire to burn the myth of the eternal return. I am exaggerating; I know that my mood will be better when I do not have to pay for rent, internet, food, etc. and I will enjoy again the comforts that will enable me to spend the day profiting university life”. VS/2014/500

In the case of foreign students who participate in programmes such as Erasmus, Socrates, California-Illinois, CASB, etc., they provide information about other aspects, for instance: their stay in Barcelona, different education systems, complaints about the lack of relationship with autochthonous students, etc.

The seriousness of Spanish economic crisis has produced a change in writingsʼ style, particularly from 2012: difficulties in finding job opportunities, the lack of grants and the social atmosphere influence studentsʼ attitude and irritates them. “Contrary to the unconcern about studies observed in 2007, for example”, says Caballé.

The paradigm change associated to crisis led Caballé to rethink the project and promote it even if the subject in which it was included has already disappeared. Now, the aim is to collect information by encouraging students of all faculties to describe how their university life is in order to answer questions like: What kind of context is considered normal? What worries students? What is their ideal future?

In order to promote the project and encourage university students to participate in it, the website Vita Studens has been created. Autobiographical texts can be submitted through social networks (140 characters in Twitter and 2,000 in Facebook) or by sending an email (up to 3,000 words). Moreover, it is planned to organise a literary contest in September. “The main objective is to collect enough information to develop a study about the reality of university life between 2007 and 2014”, concludes Caballé.