To tackle diversity issues at pre-university education, this year, we joined the In2Science Charity programme and hosted 16 year 12 students (56% female) for a week-long programme.
This involved (a) lectures on STFC science by academics in the Centre; and (b) hands-on sessions in python programming and the application of Machine Learning to the discovery of the Higgs boson.
![In2Science Activity In2Science Activity](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/data-intensive-science-industry/sites/data_intensive_science_industry/files/styles/large_image/public/in2science_activity.jpg?itok=nSEj6bmE)
This was also an opportunity for several of our CDT students to act as mentors and demonstrators. Thus, we were the only Physics Department in the country to have an In2Science offering this year. The feedback was excellent; see the table below, and the students nominated us for In2science's "Host of the Week" award, which we won against 158 other placements that week! Given the success of this scheme, we have already applied to take part in this scheme next year.
Student's Feedback
75% (100%) | A lot (A lot or somewhat) more likely to consider a career in stem |
92% (100%) | A lot (A lot or somewhat) more confident in coding. |
75% (100%) | A lot (a lot or somewhat) more confident in machine learning. |
58% (92%) | A lot (a lot or somewhat) more likely to take up coding/ML in the future. |