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University Visit by students of Blackheath High School 2007
January 25th 2007, this was the day that all year 12 pupils went on a shadowing day at a London university with their preferred choice of career subject. I went with Alka Gupta and Gracy Thangarajah (all three of us interested in medicine) to Guys’ Campus at King’s College to meet Ally Xiang, a third year medical student, currently doing a BSc in neuro-psychology.
At 10am, the first lecture of the day was a cheerful topic on “Anxiety and Depression” for 3rd year neuro-psychology students. As we each took a copy of the lecture notes, and stationed ourselves mentally to be completely overwhelmed by complex university vocabulary bombarded at us; we were all pleasantly surprised at how much we could understand, as the lecturer explained everything in, shall we say, “normal speaking language”.
The next lecture at 11am was on medical ethics. After exclaiming at the décor of the large lecture room (bright orange walls with red chairs), we sat down with Sam, a 2nd year medical student who took over from Ally for a bit (as she went back to her own lecture). All of us really enjoyed this lecture, perhaps partly due to this lecturer’s sense of humour (that no one seemed to find funny except us). He was very informative, and up-to-date, even showing newspaper clippings from that very morning. The questions that he asked in general were very fascinating, and we found out that the orange walls (disturbing at first) actually seemed to help us concentrate with no problem!
After Ally caught up with us again, we bought some lunch, spotted a King’s college themed monopoly board game in their shop, and set off to have a look at the Student Union’s fair which just happened to be on that day. There were really a lot of clubs on offer, from real frisbee team competitions to religious groups to extreme sports (somehow). However, as we were dressed in our own clothes, there were many times that we had to explain to them that we really weren’t students at this university amidst the many encouragements for us to join their clubs. One girl was even momentarily shocked when Gracy mistakenly said that we were “year 12 medics”, before she realised that we weren’t in uni yet!
The last tours we made were around the libraries, and a science museum. The museum was pretty gruesome to some extent, as hundreds and hundreds of diseased organs were preserved in various jars on display. The jars that we found most profound were those containing mutated embryos and small babies suspended in liquid. Nevertheless, it gave us much to think about as we ended the day with a question and answer session with Ally.
All in all, this shadowing day proved to be invaluable to all of us. It helped strengthen our decision to become “real” medics, and allowed us to have a good look around the university (if you ever go there, try to spot the many statues of Mr Babington that we so observantly noticed). Many thanks to Mrs Hibberd and the Minerva Network for organising everything for us, and also to Ally Xiang for a great day at King’s!
By Sarah Law 12CM
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