in Uppsala

GUC is our school in Uppsala. GUC’s full name is Graphical Center of Education. It is an upper secondary school and the students are 16-19 years old. When people in Uppsala hear that you go to GUC they immediately make a connection to media, because we have a very big media programme. There are six different specializations in media; Expo – exhibition design, event and marketing, Photographic Imagery, Graphic Communications – graphic design, Journalism, Radio and Television and last but not least the Printing Technology. These programmes are all part of the media programme. The first year all students of the media programme get to try out the different specializations and then at the end of the year make the decision which one they want to belong to. At our school we have recording studios for radio and television, several photo studios, design studios etc for the students of the media programme.
But we also have the independent part of the school consisting of  Tourism, Design, European Orientation – with an international perspective, Media Technology/Event Technology, Journalism, and Multimedia/Digital Studies.  When you are in the second grade you have your individual options, which means that you don’t have all the lessons with your ordinary class. You choose what courses you want to take. For example you can attend lessons like Film knowledge, the English C course or other language courses, Expo and other different courses.
The difference between the media part of the school and the independent part of the school is that the independent part of the school is owned by different companies instead of the municipality. 
GUC is a very good school because we get free lunch in the middle of the day, a lot of high technology that we can use and a library filled with books and lots of other stuff.

Tourism

Tourism consists of business and private travelling, accommodation and pleasure, and it is the world’s biggest and fastest growing industry. At GUC you get a chance to learn about the tourism industry and get some basic knowledge to be able to work within the area in all different ways.
Our tourism education is a broad education and when you finish this education you can start working directly. In this programme we learn more about tourism and culture in other countries, and what is different between Sweden and other countries. We also learn about the working environment in a place of work. For example about what can make you feel stressed and what you can do in order to take it easy and not stress so much. That course is called working-environment and safety. We also learn about advertising. Since we have many courses that have to do with tourism you learn very much about that, both the tourism in Sweden and in other countries.
We are not just being in school, we do a lot of fieldtrips to find out more about working life within the tourism sector. Furthermore we get two chances to try how it is out there, at different places of work , working as a trainees for some weeks. It is both fun and you get to learn a lot, and it is good practice until you start working.
This is a fun education and you will meet new people that are going to work with something within tourism in the future.

Notre lycée

Notre lycée s’appelle Grafiskt Utbildningscenter (Centre d’études graphiques), mais le plus souvent nous n'utilisons que l’abréviation GUC.

GUC est un lycée professionnel et, au départ, c’était un lycée professionnel pour les élèves de la filière "Graphique". Aujourd’hui les élèves suivent principalement un cursus "Média". Les élèves, en classe de Première, choisissent une option entre communication graphique, radio et télévision, photographie, expo ou Impression graphique. Ces élèves appartiennent à la partie du lycée qui est publique. Mais il y a aussi une section privée du lycée qui propose des filières "Journalisme", "Design", "Multimédia", "Technologie des Médias", "Section européenne",  et "Hôtellerie et Tourisme" à laquelle nous appartenons.

Notre lycée reçoit environ mille élèves : c'est un des lycées les plus grands de notre ville, Uppsala. En Suède il n’y plus de vrai ”baccalauréat”. On l’ a supprimé  il y a 40 ans. Mais pour avoir un bon travail ou pour pouvoir faire des études "post-bac" il est très important d’avoir achevé ses études en lycée jusqu’à la Terminale et d’avoir de bonnes notes.

Notre filière Hôtellerie et Tourisme

Nous sommes environ 55 élèves qui suivons un cursus d’Hôtellerie et Tourisme. Ce sont des études de trois ans. En Suède on doit faire des études avec de nombreuses matières générales, comme le suédois, l’anglais, l’éducation civique, l’histoire, l’histoire des religions et les mathématiques, même si on est dans un lycée professionnel.  Mais nous avons aussi, bien sûr, des matières techniques comme le tourisme, la Vente et les Services, la pratique du Marketing, les Projets et l'étude de l'Environnement de l’entreprise, l’Informatique.

Nous faisons également un stage de 4 semaines en Première et un stage de 8 semaines en Terminale. Après avoir terminé ses études  d’ Hôtellerie et Tourisme, on peut commencer à travailler, par exemple comme réceptionniste, ou on peut poursuivre des études post-bac de tourisme.

Mikaela Arnell-Målman, Elin Andersson FR3TU