Fares Ibrahim Sami and Alejandra Castiella, delegates of Pharmacy and Tecnun respectively, shared internships at CIMA University of Navarra last June, each in a different department and without knowing each other. A couple of months later they share a common project: to be delegate and subdelegate of the University of Navarra during the 2013-2014 academic year.

FARES IBRAHIM SAMI (4TH YEAR OF PHARMACY)

"We have to give cohesion to the faculties: that initiatives that have served some can be used in others."

What is the responsibility of a University delegate?

The most important is the cohesive one: to try to unite the faculties through the delegates of the faculties. And perhaps the most important: reaching out to the students, making them aware of the initiatives we are doing. Mostly, they will be small, short-term improvements. I would like that initiatives that are not specific to the career, that have worked in one faculty, can be spread to other centers.

Can you tell me one?

For example, we have a student tutor program that we promoted last year. It consists of a student from a higher course giving a hand to a student from one or two lower courses so that they can pass their subjects without having to go to an academy. It gave very good results, especially with students who were in high grades.

What other projects do you have to carry out these objectives?

Right now, a very important one: that people from the Sciences learn about what is happening in the Arts and vice versa. I have heard many times "if I had heard about this, I would have gone". We don't want this to happen. We want people to know what is going on below and those below to know what is going on above. The Forun Congress, for example, is not very rooted in Science, although this year it is a little more focused on Ecology, and yet it is something that concerns us all.

During the delegate presentation he said that he liked the Amigos Building very much and visited it frequently....

Last year I met the law delegates. Now we are very good friends. I was attracted to a lot of activities they had, like seminars or the Debate Club. And you might think, "A pharmacist in law? Well yes, why not?" I liked it not because it was a law thing, but because it belongs to everybody. I really like the building and especially that, unlike in the sciences, people are not only focused on their degree, but they have a lot of things on their minds.

Is it easy to combine the job of delegate with all these extracurricular activities and your career?

I do sports, I teach a child, but my life is University, from September to May. That's why I want to dedicate part of my time to this. In the end, whoever wants to can.

To what extent do the delegates need the support of all students to carry out your work?

The truth is that we demand very little: that they listen to us. We need them to be receptive, that's all. If in the end we students and delegates are not coordinated, it doesn't make any sense: it's like a movie without an audience.

An assessment of your new position...

I am very excited and I hope this year will be as good as last year. I hope I can live up to it.

ALEJANDRA CASTIELLA (4TH YEAR BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING)

"We need to bring the campuses closer together and feel more like we are the University of Navarra."

What is the role of the University's sub-delegate?

To represent all students and get their proposals and initiatives made at the University.

As a representative of Tecnun, what can you contribute as sub-delegate?

We have given it a lot of thought and what we want is to create a university atmosphere. We need to feel more like we belong to the University of Navarra. We are Tecnun, but we are also part of a much bigger University that has a lot of things that we are missing, and the other way around: there we also have very interesting things that could be implemented here. That would help.

Through which projects do you want to achieve these objectives?

This year we want to focus mainly on sports. The subdelegate of TECNUN had a great idea: to organize a solidarity race. We would achieve two objectives: sports and solidarity. In this way we would unite the two campuses. We had also thought of recovering the Sports Day on the Beach.

Besides being a student and your positions as Tecnun delegate and subdelegate of the University, what else do you do?

I have always been involved in different activities. I am very used to the fact that the university is not only about studying, you also have to take advantage of it to do other things, be a delegate, be a member of the theater group, which I also belong to, or things like that. I think it even helps to study better, because you organize yourself better and you are not thinking about it all day long. You end up combining everything and you learn to study efficiently.

What are you most excited about being subdelegate?

Tecnun should be represented in Pamplona so that the campuses can be more united and do things together. On the other hand, we, the delegates, are the right ones to take the students' initiatives. We are eager to do things. It is always said that university students are the ones who have the ideas, the most enterprising, we are in continuous growth. I think we have a very important role in supporting movements, ideas or proposals...