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The Year 10 Harris Experience students had the opportunity to visit Imperial College in central London to experience three hours of university lectures and learn about PhD research projects within the college’s specialist fields of science and medicine.

These lectures asked, for example, 'What is science?' and looked at the investigative research into excrement that is helping to save lives.

So what is science? Well according to the lecture it is a very hard question to answer and something demonstrated rather than directly answered. It is a process of prediction/ guessing, investigations, proving, and the checking if your prediction was correct.

Students then took part in simple experiments including 'the trick that tricked Einstein’, the manipulation of light through fluids and the puzzle of light itself. Question: do you know of a shape that only has one side? This was a taster of university lectures that the pupils will  likely experience when they go into higher education.

"How I got here"

Each lecturer explained their own educational and career path that led them to being at Imperial. Some had been straight through their country’s education system, which had brought them to the Blackett lecture theatre. Others had progressed into a career out of university and then had come back into the research through luck and others had failed in other career opportunities but had landed in the career that they enjoyed.

 All of them said not to worry about knowing what you want to do in the future, how you get there or what happens if you do not. Their message was to work hard, focus on your interests and enjoyments within academia and keep all ‘doors’ open. Resilience is a key factor in success. In the words of famous psychologist Albert Bandura: “People need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.”

The next trip is the cultural experience of the Royal Opera House.

Mr Metcalfe