Jorge Luis Villacís, a native of Ecuador who studied psychology at the University of Guayaquil, won the second edition of the Social Sciences Essay Contest, whose theme was “Challenges in our Contemporary World.” The contest is organized by the University of Navarra’s Social Science Research Masters, which the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) coordinates.

Villacís’s essay, entitled “Challenges foreducating twenty-first century students: Do we educate to inspire dreams or dream about not educating? Preparing students to choose a profession,” earned him first prize, which consists of a partial scholarship to study the MICS during the 2018-2019 academic year and 500 euros in cash.

In his essay, Villacís reflects on the importance of educating adolescents well when it comes to choosing their professional future. Specifically, he analyzes the question of career choice from the educator’s perspective. For this, he studied education’s ability to inspire responsible life projects.

"Many parts of contemporary global culture make this decision difficult,” he notes,“and the role of educational institutions and the teachers therein is fundamental for encouraging positive decision-making."

Villacís submitted his essay to the contest for the opportunity it offers to attend the MICS. In addition, he says that he is very excited to study in this program since "it combines an epistemological foundation with the necessary methodological tools to undertake high quality research, and a humanistic perspective."

In addition, Claudia López Madrigal, a specialist in clinical psychology from the Universidad Panamericana, earned an honorable mention for her essay entitled, “Emotions and consumption: Facilitators or disintegrators of identity.”

Innovative proposals

The contest aims to be a platform for students interested in research to develop and share innovative proposals for the challenges of today's world. It requires participants to write an essay on one or more of the issues that ICS projects work on, including emotions and identity, communication in the public sphere, religion and contemporary society, poverty and development, or education and adolescence.

The MICS collaborates with the University of Navarra’s Schools of Communication, Law, Education and Psychology, Nursing, and Humanities and Social Sciences. It is accredited by the Spanish government’s ANECA and students specialize in one of six majors, including Communication, Geodemography, Linguistics, Education, Law and Nursing.