Study in Spain

【UCM Honors Organizations Supporting Student Internship Programs】

The Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) held the 7th Recognition Ceremony for Partner Organizations of its External Academic Internship Programs on December 3 at the Faculty of Medicine. The event was presided over by Rector Joaquín Goyache and Concepción García Gómez, Vice-Rector for Continuing Education, Employability and Entrepreneurship.

Both university leaders highlighted the growing diversity of organizations that offer internships to UCM students each year. Despite their different profiles, these institutions share a strong commitment to providing students with time, guidance, supervision and trust. The ceremony, they noted, serves as an important opportunity to acknowledge and thank these partners for their essential contribution to student training and to society as a whole.

Rector Goyache explained that UCM currently has more than 12,000 collaboration agreements with companies and institutions. Through the annual recognition event, the university selects several organizations to express gratitude in a tangible and visible way. These collaborations, he said, not only support student development but also help society become more dynamic while contributing to the continuous improvement of UCM.

Vice-Rector García Gómez emphasized that the ceremony celebrates the meaningful cooperation between the university and its partners in preparing students for their academic and professional futures. She described internships as a privileged meeting point between academia and society, allowing students to enter professional environments, develop workplace skills, and explore practical applications of the knowledge gained in the classroom. At the same time, partner organizations benefit from the energy, creativity and fresh perspectives that students bring.
The rector added that one of UCM’s missions is to supply talent to companies, a role clearly reflected in the speeches delivered by representatives of the organizations receiving recognition.

External academic internships play a key role in improving graduates’ employability and shaping employer perceptions. The combination of rigorous academic preparation and high-quality practical experience, the university affirmed, is one of the most decisive factors for students’ job readiness. UCM’s objective is to ensure that each student finds a practical experience aligned with their interests and that partner institutions feel fully supported in their collaboration with the university.

Before the award presentations, attendees viewed a video produced by UCM’s Office of Internships and Employment (OPE), featuring the experiences of five students who completed internships at Faunia, PwC, Fundación ONCE, Desperta Ferro Ediciones and the General Council of Nursing of Spain.

https://tribuna.ucm.es

【Complutense University Hosts International Congress “Spanish: A Language of Thought?”】

On September 29, the Rector of the Complutense University of Madrid, Joaquín Goyache, inaugurated the international congress “Spanish: A Language of Thought?”, held at the Faculty of Philosophy over two days, with the participation of prominent intellectuals from Spain and Latin America. For the Rector, the answer to the question posed in the congress title is a resounding “yes.” He stressed that in recent years Complutense has taken decisive steps to promote the use of Spanish as a language of thought, knowledge, and research. Among the examples he cited are the Complutense African School, whose first edition was recently held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea—the only country in Africa with Spanish as a native language—and Una Europa, the alliance of European universities in which UCM participates, which will soon hold its General Assembly on the Complutense campus, with Spanish as one of its working languages.

Professor Nuria Sánchez Madrid, from the Department of Philosophy and Society, underlined that this congress makes it possible to debate, assess, and propose measures for the use of Spanish “in a global and international space where philosophy is mostly written and debated in English.” According to Antonio Rivera García, Director of the Department of Philosophy and Society, such a debate is particularly relevant today, as it can be linked to the major political, economic, and especially technological challenges of our time. José María Fuster, President of the SICOMORO Foundation, also emphasized during the opening session that we live in a world in which the interconnection of experimental sciences, social sciences, and the humanities requires deep analysis.

The Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Juan José García Norro, acknowledged that the very title of the congress contains “uncomfortable questions.” He explained that the meeting will, without a doubt, discuss the health of Spanish as a vehicle for transmitting humanistic and philosophical thought and propose measures to improve it, if necessary. But he added that, being hosted in a Faculty of Philosophy, the congress also seeks to go further and deeper: to what extent does speaking in Spanish shape what we think? “Does identity depend on language?” García Norro asked. “Perhaps the answer is not a simple yes or no, but something more nuanced,” he concluded.

This debate on the relationship between language and thought was precisely the topic addressed in the inaugural lecture by Carlos Peña González, jurist, philosopher, and Rector of Diego Portales University in Chile. According to José Luis Villacañas, Professor Emeritus at Complutense and co-director of the congress alongside Professor Jorge Úbeda, Peña is “the most important intellectual in Chile and one of the most important in Latin America.” His reflections, expressed both in his numerous books and in his weekly column in El Mercurio, the most widely read newspaper in Chile, are considered a benchmark.

Rector Carlos Peña explained that the relationship between language and knowledge is one of the great debates that philosophy has been addressing for centuries, with contributions from major thinkers such as Heidegger, Habermas, and Steiner. It was Steiner who, in After Babel, asked how it is possible that human beings, who share the same phonetic and cerebral structures, have developed more than 5,000 different languages. Peña left the audience—composed largely of professors and students from Spain and various Latin American countries—with a thought-provoking question: “If language is not merely an instrument, does this mean that there are more than 5,000 different ways of thinking?”

https://tribuna.ucm.es