Masterclasses are a range of online, subject-specific, hour-long sessions for students in Year 12. Sessions run weekly on Tuesday and Thursday (4-5pm) from January to April. Applications are now open!
Masterclasses are online, subject-specific, hour-long sessions for students in Year 12 to get a taste of university. Masterclasses will introduce you to subjects available at UCL in 2024. The hour-long sessions will feature a lecture on a specific topic from UCL academics and PhD students.
This year, Masterclasses will be online. The sessions are interactive, and we encourage you to engage with the presenters, as there is an opportunity at the end to ask questions about the topic presented.
Find out more about our February schedule below! We will also be offering Masterclasses in January (Arts & Design), March (Social Sciences), and April (Sciences and Social Sciences).
February - Sciences
Medicine
Topic: An Introduction to Studying Medicine
Presenter: Dr Sarah Bennett
Date: Tuesday 06 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
UCL has educated doctors since 1834. Working closely with several major teaching hospitals, it provides a truly world class medical education. In this Masterclass, you will hear from a doctor about their career journey. You will also discover more about the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme at UCL. The session will also include an outline of the medicine application process, and tips for preparing to apply.
Chemical Engineering
Topic: Nature-Inspired Chemical Engineering: A NICE Approach to Sustainable Development
Presenter: Marc-Olivier Coppens
Date: Thursday 08 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
This Masterclass will cover the systematic, Nature-Inspired Solution (NIS) methodology as a pathway to innovation. You will discover how we learn from trees, lungs, kidneys, and dunes to transform chemical and energy processes, from fluid mixing to catalysts for efficient, cleaner manufacturing, hydrogen fuel cells, and durable membranes for water treatment and bio-separations. NICE is also an avenue to discover materials for biomedicine, the built environment, and even technology to preserve water for space missions.
Statistics
Topic: An Introduction to Game Theory
Presenter: Dr Alexander Watson
Date: Tuesday 13 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
When you play a game with other people, you need to think not only about what is likely to be a successful strategy under the rules, but also how other people will decide to act. How do we imagine that others will respond to a guessing game, and how accurate are those mental models? In this Masterclass, we will play some games ourselves, talk about the mathematical questions that underlie this situation, and dive into a statistical investigation of the area.
Population Health Sciences
Topic: Population Health Sciences: a UK Perspective
Presenter: Alison Moody
Date: Thursday 15 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
How healthy are we as a society? How do we define “healthy”? How and why does health vary between different population groups? This session will explore population health sciences from a UK perspective. We will examine changes in population health over time, and the differences in health experienced by different groups. We will seek to understand why, if you took the Jubilee line from Westminster to Canning Town, local life expectancy would decrease by one year for every two stations you passed.
Sciences and Engineering for Social Change
Topic: Solving the Complex Challenges Puzzle: a Multi-Disciplinary Perspective
Presenter: Dr Irina Lazar and Dr Elisa Randazzo
Date: Tuesday 20 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
We often hear that modern societies are currently facing complex global challenges, which trespass boarders and are not easy to solve or even tackle. But what are the most pressing problems? How do we identify them and whose job is it to try to solve them? In this Masterclass, we will explore how science and engineering can help address these challenges when combined with the social sciences and public policy. We will bring in the Sustainable Development Goals framework of the United Nations and explore the topic from an interactive and multidisciplinary perspective. Tackling complex issues from multiple angles ensures that we can produce technologically-sound sustainable solutions that are equitable and can be implemented on a large scale in society.
Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR)
Topic: How Could Space Exploration Benefit Life on Earth?
Presenter: Myles Harris
Date: Thursday 22 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
IRDR aims to achieve leadership in risk and disaster reduction and emergency response both in the UK and internationally. This IRDR Masterclass will ask: How could space exploration benefit life on Earth? A new space age has begun. The global exploration roadmap has brought together national space agency to bring humankind to Mars by 2050. To get there, we must overcome enormous challenges and risks – isolation and confinement during spaceflight, muscle, and bone density wastage, and providing healthcare with no option of evacuation to a hospital. However, some argue that the money spent on space exploration is better spent on Earth. In this Masterclass, you will discover how space exploration can benefit life on Earth and what research is currently being done to bring humankind to Mars safely.
Sport and Exercise Medical Sciences
Topic: An Introduction to Sport and Exercise Medical Sciences
Presenter: Joseph Warwick
Date: Tuesday 27 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
This Masterclass will give you a snap shot of what you can study across the second and third year of the Sport and Exercise Medical Sciences programme (SEM). The session will help you to understand key components from the multidisciplinary team that are involved in SEM. Whether you want to be a physiotherapist, doctor, sport scientist, or strength and conditioning coach, this degree will set your career up with the best foundational platform to excel in your chosen field.
Cancer Institute
Topic: Cancer Research: Past, Present, and Future
Presenter: Callum Oddy
Date: Tuesday 29 February 2024, 4 - 5pm
The UCL Cancer Institute is the hub for cancer research at UCL. This Masterclass will highlight how scientific research is being used to fight back against cancer. You will consider cancer from a historical context, and then we will examine modern definitions, including the types of cancer and who may be diagnosed.