One of our talented Year 12 students has recently taken part in special residential event at the University of Oxford.
Natasha McDonald, from Year 12 was the only students accepted from West Cumbria to attend the event, with three others from Carlisle & Penrith. There were 25 students in total who attended.
Natasha spoke to us about her experience and how this has benefitted her for her future plans. She said:
“The Science Residential was an amazing experience that not only showed me that Oxford is an attainable goal but also allowed me to build a network of friends that have the same interests and aspirations as myself.”
“During my stay there, I was given a schedule that included academic mixed with social time, and time that was allocated to tours around Oxford and Corpus Christi College as well as the Queen’s College – which was where we were staying.”
“Since I planned to study medicine, Queen’s College planned my activities to involve this. I had a really interesting plant biology talk in the botanical gardens, a medicine talk by a fifth year medical student on the cancer immunity cycle which allowed me to stretch and apply my A Level content to medicine, and a taster session of earth sciences.”
“On my final day, I and three other aspiring medics were allowed to attend a medicine tutorial that explored the genome and the VHL gene and its links to cancer. This was a great experience that allowed me to have a more in-depth discussion about medicine and really ignited a further passion.”
The application process was very accessible too all. Students had to submit their GCSE grades on the form and write a few short paragraphs on why they wanted to go on the residential.
They also had to tell Queen’s College what science subject they were planning to study so they could tailor the residential to them personally. We were also asked to provide a reference so that Queen’s College could get more information before deciding on if to accept students.
Well done Natasha, we hope you enjoyed the experience.
