UCAM University, the educational model of excellence

08–OCT–2022 | After our attendance at the prestigious ICEF Higher Education event in Barcelona, the representatives of PRODIREKT and the Verbalists Education & Language Network were privileged to be the guests of Universidad Catolica de Murcia (UCAM), one of the best private universities in Europe.

While on the two-day familiarization trip, our representative toured the two amazing campuses, met academic staff and got acquainted with the historic city center of Murcia as well as Cartagena.

The highlights of UCAM and our visit

UCAM has two university campuses, located in Guadalupe (Murcia) and Los Dolores (Cartagena), both belonging to the Region of Murcia, a perfect place to live and where you can enjoy the beach, mountains, a great gastronomic culture and lots of life.

Universidad Catolica de Murcia is celebrating a very special year, as this year marks 25 years since its first students set foot in the classrooms of the fascinating Monastery of Los Jerónimos. Since then, 100,000 UCAM students have graduated, while the University has invested 197 million euros in research. All this has been recognized by national and international rankings, such as the ones published by Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), identifying UCAM strengths in teaching, inclusiveness, social responsibility, and outstanding programs. The University is also known for its low dropout rate and the high employability of its students.

UCAM is committed to the highest quality in its training, with a methodology based on personalized teaching. The PRODIREKT students also like that, upon arriving at the university, they are assigned their own personal tutor who is there to guide them and solve any problems promptly.  

The University is accredited by ANECA (National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain) as well as by the Ministry of Education with regards to 17 of its undergraduate degrees. In addition, the University offers more than thirty official Masters Degrees and Doctoral Studies.

Universidad Catolica de Murcia has started the 2022-23 academic year with several new developments. The studies were divided into 10 large faculties: Medicine; Pharmacy and Nutrition; Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Podiatry; Nursing; Sports; Communication; Education; Law; Economics and Business, and the UCAM Polytechnic School. However, we were particularly impressed with the implementation of Canvas as the new Virtual Campus.

Canvas, the world’s leading Virtual Campus

Canvas is the platform used by many of the best universities in the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and University of Oxford. It represents one of the most advanced online learning management systems and encourages teacher innovation and student participation.

And how does this work? The platform mainly provides teachers with a series of tools so that they can make the content interactive and more attractive for students. Canvas puts the student and the teacher at the center of the user experience. Teachers have their own application which they are able to access from their smartphones to upload topics, correct exams or reply to messages from their students.

Another strong point of Canvas is easy access to a large amount of information on student activity, enabling the creation of an early alert system, for example, to prevent dropouts. The platform is capable of generating warnings when a student drastically decreases their activity, to inform the teacher so that he can do a personalized follow-up.

The incorporation of this new virtual campus is one more leap for the UCAM University in its commitment to the use of the most innovative tools for higher education. This step joins others taken previously, such as the installation of Wi-Fi 6 on the Murcia and Cartagena campuses to allow maximum connection speed, and state-of-the-art digital whiteboards in all classrooms, as well as the first real class experiences in the metaverse.

UCAM Dental: one of the largest university dental clinics in Spain

In its continued commitment to quality training and its vocation of service, especially in the field of health, UCAM University launched the Dental Clinic. The Clinic opened its doors in May of 2018 with a double objective: to be an odontological reference center for patients of all ages and pathologies, as well as to serve future dentists and dental professionals when it comes to expanding their practical training. With advanced technologies and the professionals staff, the students of the Bachelor Degree in Dentistry do their internships in this innovative Clinic.

UCAM Dental has a clinical and surgical area with 52 boxes equipped with latest technologies, sterilization area and radiology area with the highest technology for three-dimensional images. It also has waiting rooms, recovery rooms, monitoring and control of practices for undergraduate and postgraduate classes, patient care offices, library and meeting rooms, administrative areas and services, etc.

The UCAM’s educational model of excellence

UCAM puts significant effort into increasing the employability of recent graduates. We were told that currently the percentage of students finding a job after graduation stands at 86% in total.

At UCAM, you will experience the dynamism and enthusiasm of the university community, top teaching technical equipment, the lovely surroundings of Jerónimos Monastery, and the sports culture with twenty-one elite teams competing at the top level.

The Catholic University of Saint Anthony (UCAM)