“MY COMPASS – Enabling students’ agency in their route to the future”
Erasmus+ project n. 2023-1-IT-KA220-SCH-000156174
17 – 21 March 2025
The activities Ovidius High School planned for the 17-21 March mobility were designed to explore the various ways in which career orientation events can be organised and delivered by any regular school in order to reach all their students, including those from vulnerable groups. The plan was constructed taking into account three possible approaches:
1. involving the community
2. involving the student and alumni body
3. class activities
The first approach – involving the community – was possible through contacting local and regional teaching and training institutions which deliver professional training in the most popular careers in Constanţa region. In this way, Ovidius High School was able to organise visits in three remarkable local educational and training centres: the Naval Academy “Mircea cel Bătrân”, the school ship “Mircea” and the Diving Centre.
The visit to the Naval Academy “Mircea cel Bătrân” (a higher education institution) allowed students to discover the training path taken by those who wish to make a career as seafarers. The Greek and Romanian students were presented the study programmes offered by the Academy and could experience first-hand maneuvering and navigating a ship in one of the state-of-the-art simulators – The Integrated Ship Handling Simulator.
To offer visitors a complete view of this training path, an additional visit was organised to the school ship “Mircea”, the vessel on which students of the Naval Academy undergo their practical training in month-long voyages.
A third visit was at the Diving Training Centre where students could explore the training facilities for future professional divers.
Ovidius High School also hosted a talk delivered by Mr. Mihai Nenciu, a local entrepreneur who is also a mountain climber, scuba diver, ultramarathon runner and extreme sports athlete. The talk focused on the paramount importance motivation has in determining one’s path in life. His inspirational life stories captivated the students and illustrated Mr. Nenciu’s motto that “the power of role-models is not one form of education; it is the only one.”
The more personal approach of involving the student and alumni body allowed Ovidius High School to organise a series of workshops on the topic of career orientation. The first was a presentation delivered by two Ovidius High School graduates who had chosen the medical career: dr. Semra Maulti and Nelisa Gafar, a student in the final year of Medical School, spoke to the Greek and Romanian students of how and why they had chosen the medical career but also of the challenges and obstacles they had to address on their educational route.
The Greek and Romanian teams also participated in a roundtable with representatives of Ovidius High School Students’ Council. These presented to their Greek peers the activities organised by the students for the students such as NGO fairs (events where students find out about volunteering opportunities with local and national NGOs) or social events which enable teens to connect beyond class or curricular limits.
“Tutors of LTO”, for example, consists of tutoring sessions offered by students to students, enabling financially vulnerable teenagers to access further training and education on school subjects of interest.
The Romanian hosting students presented the short videos they had created on the topic of career orientation from an adolescent’s perspective. These videos will be added to the My Compass project website to allow other educators to access and use them in their orientation and counselling activities.
At the end of the mobility, the Romanian hosts invited their Greek peers to observe a class activity in which a tool designed and included in the My Compass Methodological Toolkit was used with the specific objective of enabling students’ agency in the process of discovering and planning their route to the future.
Thus, twelve students from class IX D (aged 15 to 16) explored the advantages presented by keeping a structured diary of their own questions and challenges, solutions and successes.
The feedback moment at the end of the class allowed the Greek students to provide excellent suggestions for improvement to the Romanian teachers by giving their own, honest perspective on what makes an orientation class using this tool (the diary) more effective.
Naturally, the mobility included activities which enabled our guests to discover Constanţa in an entertaining manner. Thus, Ms Diana Slav, a renowned local guide graciously offered to organise a tour of the “old city” of Constanţa through a fun-packed treasure hunt.
The Greek team appreciated in the superlative all the events they were involved in as part of their mobility to Constanţa and it is certain that the bonds forged between the students and teachers of 53rd Lyceum Athens and “Ovidius” High School will resist the test of time.
We are all looking forward to the next mobility in the “My Compass” project in the week 31st March – 4th April during which the Romanian students will be hosted by their peers from Istituto Omnicomprensivo Orte, Italy and the students and teachers of Agrupamento de Escolas “Jose Saramago”, Portugal will be the guests of their peers from 53rd Lyceum Athens, Greece.
