A WEEK AT SURREY UNI

“All of last week, 20 students from Year 8 attended a week of activities and opportunities at Surrey University. We learnt all about university life and how it is different to normal school life; we learnt lots of new information.

On the first day, we students were introduced to the idea of university and why it is different to normal education from day to day. We were also given a tour of the campus and told where the lecture rooms were and where the canteen was! Throughout the week, we were given £5.50 each day to spend on food and drink in the canteen; they had a wide range of food, from sandwiches to sushi.

Throughout the next few days we were introduced to the subjects and societies available at the university; this included subject tasters of: law, business, nutrition and maths. The people who arranged the university week aimed the subjects at our age by making them engaging and very hands on. For example, for law we made Lego sculptures of what the word ‘law’ meant to us. As mentioned before, we did tasters of different societies on the third day. These societies were Chinese, Karate, African Drumming and Debate. We were able to take these skills and use them later on in the week during classes we did.

On Thursday, we learnt about the different types of support available at Surrey University (whether it was fixing a computer or someone to go talk to). We were taught more about the financial support and mental support. Finally, on the last day of our visit, we participated in a graduation ceremony where we received certificates for our achievements at the university and our progress. We wore mortarboards and gowns to make it feel as if we were graduating for real.

We all really enjoyed this experience as it widened our views on university and whether we would like to go. It was a very informative but fun trip, which allowed us to be ourselves and have fun whilst learning something new each day.”

By Isla Betts and Amelia Goodenough