Retirement is the end of your working life, but that does not mean that from that moment on you can only fill your time accompanying your grandchildren to the park. After retirement, many people are still eager to develop new skills and acquire new knowledge. Some of them have always had a passion for a specific subject - such as history, art or music - or would have liked to access university studies but could not.
Some have even thought about enrolling in university now, but they cannot keep up with the academic demands, so they attend university centers as listeners. After the work stage, it is a good time to continue learning, but without the pressure of passing any exam and, simply, for the pleasure of learning. This is demonstrated by projects such as the University Extension Classrooms for the Elderly of the UB (AUGG BCN UB), which offer teaching and cultural activities under the slogan 'Stop learning is start aging'.
AUGG BCN UB is a non-profit entity that welcomes people over fifty-five years of age who are interested in obtaining new knowledge and being socially and culturally active. With the collaboration of the University of Barcelona (UB), the association organizes training activities in various centers throughout the city of Barcelona. The entity offers long-term seminars (taught throughout the school year) on history, painting, poetry and literature and a course to learn English. Likewise, they also have shorter seminars on music, film, mathematics, finance, chemistry, and this course has even incorporated one on quantum physics.
In addition, users of the University Extension Classrooms can also sign up for cultural outings to visit exhibitions, take literary routes and visit places in Catalonia. Trips to destinations within and outside Europe are also offered. Marianela Adolfo, administrative secretary of the entity, explains that “trips have been made to New Zealand, Africa, India, Australia and Iceland”, outings that “always have a cultural purpose” and in which the students are often “accompanied by a teacher who guides them.” The last destination was Salzburg, a trip focused on music guided by a university professor.
Likewise, for theater lovers, there is also a workshop throughout the course, where students work on body expression and prepare a play. Furthermore, “the work is presented at the end of the course in front of the rest of the members at the ‘Festa de les Aules’, a day where we all say goodbye to the course together,” explains Marianela Adolfo. In this way, she adds, “partners can show the final result of the work they have been doing during the course.”
This initiative arose more than 60 years ago at the hands of Dr. Francesc Pons Catchot. Following the initiative of the French sociologist Pierre Velhas, who founded the first Classrooms for the Elderly at the University of Toulouse in 1975, Pons presented this idea to the rector of the University of Barcelona, who opened the doors to them and gave them the chapel of the University. Faculty of Philology and Communication. The first group of classrooms began there and, over the years and the integration of more and more members, the association has incorporated different activities.
Marianela Adolfo explains that the objective of the association is “to offer the opportunity to study to all those people who have never been able to have access to university studies.” She states that, after retirement, it is a good time for older people to do activities that they have always wanted to do and that they have not done due to lack of time. “This generation of older people is very active and really wants to continue learning and doing things,” says Adolfo. Currently, the association has more than 3,000 members and “every year many more are encouraged to sign up.”
Àngel Serrano, student and member of AUGG BCN, is 81 years old and has already retired for five years, but he is still an energetic person with a desire to learn new things and have an active social life. Every Wednesday he goes to the chapel of the Faculty of Philology and Communication of the UB, where he attends two conferences given by university professors and learns about history, music, art, astronomy and even medicine. This activity is already part of his routine: there, he meets with other students and learns about various areas of knowledge.
Serrano explains that, in addition to “learning about many different topics,” attending seminars and conferences “is also a way to meet people and create friendships.” “The classrooms are full of people,” she says, “and some people have even been coming for more than 20 years.” Laughing, he observes that this shows that many older people “Still want to learn!”
Students receive a schedule at home with the titles and dates of the quarter's conferences. However, Àngel Serrano affirms that he is not in the habit of looking at him, since he prefers to attend and be surprised by the topic he touches on that day. “Today, for example,” he admits, “the topic of the first conference did not catch my attention, however, it surprised me a lot, because I loved it!” He states that this happens to him often and that, for this reason, he likes to “come to all the conferences, even without first looking at what is going to be talked about.” In them, he explains, they learn about topics that he would never have imagined. “Once there was even a doctor in History who spoke about cannibalism!”, he says, a lecture that he found, “surprisingly, very interesting.”
For thirty years of her working life, Serrano worked in a women's clothing manufacturing company. Later, he became office manager of a motorcycle importing and distributing company, a job from which he retired “five years later than expected.” While he worked, he dedicated a lot of time to his work, however, when he retired, he went “from being very busy to staying at home staring at the ceiling.” “I didn't want that,” explains Àngel Serrano, so, as he continued to have a desire to learn and was very interested in studying the sky, he decided that he would enroll in university to study Astronomy.
However, he explains laughing that when he went to sign up and they showed him the teaching program of everything he would have to study and the assignments he would have to hand in, he said “Thanks, but no.” The University Extension Classrooms for Older People allow you to continue training, but without the pressure of homework and exams that university degrees imply. So, when they recommended he sign up, he did, and now he has “a full agenda” of activities that bring him “a lot of cultural richness.”
As Serrano is passionate about music, one of his favorite activities is intimate auditions, an activity that takes place once a month, where, after a chamber music concert exclusively for them, members can talk with the musicians . Serrano explains that he really enjoys this activity, since “when you go to the Auditori to see a concert, you leave very happy, but here you have even more fun, because you can ask the musicians questions and learn much more.”
In addition, Serrano has also signed up for two seminars: one on art history and another on opera. “In these seminars, a speaker comes and explains things to you about a specific topic,” she says. In art history, for example, “the teacher explains the painting to you and also its historical moment, so that you can understand the reason the painter had for creating it.”
To access these activities, interested people have to become members of the entity and pay an annual fee of €96. Marianela Adolfo, secretary of AUGG BCN UB, explains that this “gives them access to in-person conferences without additional cost or the need to reserve.” However, to participate in other additional activities such as workshops, cultural outings or trips, you must reserve and pay separately. The programming can be consulted on the association's website and is renewed annually or quarterly, depending on the type of activity.
The secretary of AUGG BCN affirms that this entity is sustained mainly thanks to the work of volunteer members, such as Àngel Serrano, who agree to organize and supervise the activities. With the limited resources and staff they have, the association would not be able to cover all the activities they offer today. Almost 50 volunteer members are, in addition to students, delegates to conferences or workshops. They do it with the support of a small group of four people who are in the office, but Marianela Adolfo assures that “this association would not exist if it were not for the volunteers,” to whom she is very grateful for their dedication.
