Centre for Talented Youth Ireland
The Centre for the Talented Youth of Ireland (CTYI) is a youth programme for students - between the ages of six and sixteen - of high academic ability in Ireland. There are also sibling projects around the world, most notably the CTY programme at Johns Hopkins University, the original model for CTYI.
CTYI was founded in 1992 and is based at Dublin City University in Glasnevin, Dublin 9. It offers correspondence courses and Saturday classes at universities and institutes of technology around Ireland, as well as the summer programme, which is based in DCU. Two sessions are run each summer. Demand in recent years has meant that students who are eligible (12-16-year-olds who have been assessed via the SAT) may attend one session, not both. About 20% of students are from overseas (mostly from the United States) and many students are residential, living on campus for the three week duration.
In the summer programme, classes are held every weekday with study periods in the evening. Activities are arranged in the afternoon and on weekends. Outside of class, the RAs (residential assistants) are responsible for the students' welfare. Course subjects range from languages like Chinese, Japanese and Russian, to courses in the social, natural and computer sciences, creative arts, and humanities, like Electronic Engineering. Courses tend to cover material that is at first-year university level or its equivalent, and involve subjects not taught (or widely taught) for the Leaving Certificate.
- Note* CTYI also stands for CTY Inappropriate in Centre for Talented Youth camps
Subjects Covered
Advertising
Archaeology A
Archaeology B
Chinese Language & Culture
Computer Applications
Corporate Business
Drama
Economics
Electronic Engineering
Engineering
International History
International Relations
Japanese Language & Culture
Journalism
Legal Studies
Marine Biology
Medicine in the Laboratory
Modern Mathematics
Philosophy
Physiotherapy
Psychology
Speculative Fiction Writing
Theoretical Physics
21st Century Science
Writing for Life
Zoology
(Accurate as of 2005)
CTYI Culture
CTYI culture is seen by many to be defined by its openness, surrealist qualities and very much by tradition.
Cross-dressing, spontaneous applause, hugging, licking and going barefoot are also important to CTYIers.
Music and Films are large parts of the CTYI culture, with many CTYIers being able to quote entire Monty Python films and spout random useless trivia about Pink Floyd.
CTYI Traditions
The CTYI song is American Pie and it is sung at the end of every weekly disco.
Certain CTYIzens celebrate the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy every Thursday by carrying around a towel and wearing a dressing gown.
There have also been various "cults" formed, most notably "the Cult of the Spoon", which involved wearing a small plastic spoon behind your ear and seems to recur every few years, but its origins seem to lie in the sessions of 1999. In 2005 a number of students founded their own countries with names such as Invernia and Davetopia.
Another CTYI tradition involves the attachment of "Ultimate" onto activites in an effort to make them seem more interesting than they actually are. Examples of this are Ultimate Board Games, Ultimate Discussion, Ultimate Packing and Ultimate Dolphin Appreciation.
Students who are aged sixteen or older and so no longer eligible to attend are referred to as "Nevermores" and those who attended in 2001 or earlier are often referred to as "oldies". In 2005, many nevermores replaced every instance of the word "last" in their conversations with the phrase "best ever".
While all the above is true, it must be remembered that there are those who do not take part in any such activities. Those that abstain from these activities refer to those that take part as "losers".