On 12 February myself and a group of master’s students on the MSc Genes, Drugs and Stem Cells course hosted an all day workshop entitled “the future of biomedical sciences” for 40 black and minority ethnic (BME) students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds from across London. The event was run as one of Generating Genius’s masterclasses. Generating Genius is a charity set up by Tony Sewell that supports talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to realise their potential in STEM.
Partnering with the charity enabled us to reach this demographic, without having to do any time-consuming admin with respect to making arrangements with students/schools/parents allowing us to just focus on creating and delivering an interactive, fun workshop.
The feedback from Generating Genius was overwhelmingly positive with 99% of the young people either agreeing or strongly agreeing that the session was interesting. They particularly appreciated how we linked every topic with the careers involved, giving the young people a real understanding of the courses they could apply for and the choices they would need to make to achieve it, which is at the core of what Generating Genius wanted them to get out of these sessions.
Personally I would like to thank the masters students for getting involved in this activity, it made the day much more fun and the pupils really enjoyed interacting with them.
If you would like to get involved in any future outreach activity then please get in touch s.rankin@imperial.ac.uk.
Participants
Prof Sara Rankin, Miss Kamini Lakshmikanthan Miss Vargini Ledchumykanthan (NHLI outreach officers).
Master students, Irene Sachouli, Aisha Nawaz, Sarah Wong, Semih Bayraktar, Ana Rubio Gomez, Fatemeh Kermani.
Professor of Leukocyte and Stem Cell Biology
