Upper Secondary Seminars

Throughout the academic year we offer upwards of 25 seminars on various themes.

In this first round, the following seminars have been held:

· Business and artificial intelligence, Business ethics and Marketing –run by IQS Business

· Mechanics, automation and electronics - by IQS Chemistry

· Unusual chemistry (by Núria Villalonga)

· Sport and Faith (by Nubar Hamparzoumian SJand Pablo Sitges)

· Mathemagic (by Eduard Rovira)

· Fashion design (by Mercè Jou)

· First aid (by Marta Rojano)

· Literary outlook and other inter-artistic perspectives (by Gemma Gutés)

· Live arts (by Laura Rico)

Business and artificial intelligence, Business ethics and Marketing

The goal is to get to know the diversity of options in ADE, Marketing, International Business.

We have accessed the Refinitiv Workspace (Finance Lab) which gives access to real time information on financial markets: Financial Statements, Stock Prices, Bond prices, Currencies, Derivatives, Investment Funds, ETF, Commodities, Real State, etc.

The Refinitiv Workspace brings students closer to the job market thanks to a tool that integrates the main financial companies worldwide: financial institutions, banks, multinationals and government agencies. It is connected to stock exchanges around the world, broadening students' financial culture and enabling them to work with the software used by the world's leading organisations, thereby readying them for future professional practice in the field of finance and economics.

Mechanics, automation and electronics

This seminar included a visit featuring an in-depth explanation of the workshops and laboratories at IQS. We visited the laboratories of Mechanics (SEAT-IQS Laboratory), Automation, Electronics, Electrotechnics, Computer Aided Design, Additive Manufacturing (3D printer) and Materials. We have undertaken activities related to various themes:

• Use of alternative energies to generate energy for domestic use.
• Applications of alternating current and direct current motors.
• Design and printing on 3D printers using programs such as CATIA.
• Practical demonstrations related to computer automation and control over the Internet.
• Practical demonstrations related to the commissioning of an automatic prototype manufacturing line.
• Mechanisms explaining the inner workings of an automobile.

Unusual chemistry

This is a wholly experimental seminar in which we can observe how water can cause fires, and in which we make a tree and a chemical traffic light, change the colour of a 5-cent coin and conduct other experiments. The seminar is intended for all students who like being in the laboratory, are curious about science and want to know the physico-chemical basis behind some unusual experiments.

Sport and Faith

The Sport and Faith seminar is an inspiring experience that merges two core aspects of human life. During this seminar, we discover how perspectives on sport and faith intertwine to enhance personal and spiritual growth. Through the seminar, students will explore how the ethical values of sport, such as discipline, perseverance and charity, relate to the core principles of faith. In that regard, this seminar strives to inspire participants to find a balance between sport and their spiritual life, thus fostering holistic well-being and the development of strong values.

Live arts

Art and culture are intrinsic to human beings and are essential to life.

The live arts bring us the possibility of an aesthetic experience that moves and moves us and brings us closer to others. From its ethical approach, it offers us a common space and a rituality that shapes us as a collective.

Art, in itself and for the experience it can bring about in people, is in essence educational as it:

· It enhances creativity. It enables us to understand and express our perception of reality.

· It develops people's core capacities, such as an interest in knowledge, the significant pleasure of effort, a critical sense, sensitivity and emotion.

By facilitating meaningful experiences through art, it can become transformative.

Access to culture and developing individual and collective creative capacities is a key right and a basic element of people's education. The school offers this direct contact with the performing arts to strengthen the link between culture and education. Mathematics.

Mathemagic

This seminar explores the relationship between mathematics and magic through sleight of hand with cards, numbers, mentalism… Though they may seem to be very distant disciplines, they meet at a certain point and complement each other. The seminar sessions explain the principles of probability, geometry and arithmetic through entertainment, sleight of hand and games of mental agility.

Literary outlook and other inter-artistic perspectives

The purpose of this seminar is to analyse the relationship between literature and other visual and audiovisual arts such as painting, cinema and opera.

▪ Relationship between plastic and literary language: we will analyse fragments of Balzac's unknown masterpiece, contrasting them with Picasso's drawings and other pictorial trajectories that have inspired them.

▪ Relationship between cinematographic and literary language. We focus on studying two pairs of writers and filmmakers: Ernest Hemingway and Robert Siodmak, on the one hand, and Dashiell Hammet and Akiro Kurosawa, on the other.

▪ Relationship between music (opera) and literature: Don Juan is a pivotal character in literary studies of literature. The session's challenge is to analyse Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's musical version of Don Juan, Don Giovanni (1787), and to contrast it with Molière's version of Don Juan (1665).

Fashion design. Evolution and fabrics.

Do you know what a muslin cloth is? And tweed?

Could you wear a boat neck collar or a halterneck? A mermaid-cut or a bias-cut skirt? This seminar focuses its gaze on the history of fashion, from the first trend-setting designers

to the latest stylistic contributions. We also discover and touch various fabrics and learn to recognise the volumes of garments.

Using all this knowledge, we propose to create a small fashion collection during the seminar.

First aid

First aid is a vital tool to safeguard life, and we don't know when, where or with whom we might need to apply it.

Basic life support includes manoeuvres that can be learned and performed quickly, in order to keep an injured person alive until definitive care is given, and can be carried out by anyone who has been trained.

In the event of an accident, those who first come into contact with the injured person represent the vital link in the initial care of the patient.

This seminar teaches us how to act in the event of an emergency, and we work hands-on with simulations of real cases.