Session 6B (Cambridge, Year 8) - Saturday 9th March 2013

Another early start for ESIP as we left East London on minbuses before 8am and headed to the University of Cambridge.

We arrived early at the Cavonius Centre (part of the Stephen Hawking building) and started off by setting our breakfast club targets. Charlie from NRICH woke us up with the Bridge problem and Fausta and Stacey were the first pair to the solution.

Dr Andrew Bell, Admissions Tutor for Gonville and Caius, gave us an excellent introduction to universities and Cambridge in particular. Andrew told us university was an opportunity to study a subject in an in depth way and related this to his personal expertise in History which is the history of Northern Europe between 400 and 1300. He emphasized that at university we should study subjects we were both good at and excited by and use this as an opportunity to develop skills and knowledge in areas we are already interested in. Subjects are much broader than we think they are at school  and the approach to study is much wider and open ended.

University can help improve our job prospects. A high grade degree from a top university can make it easier to get good jobs irrespective of the subject because during a university degree we learn lots of things including problem solving, logical thinking, how to work with people and how to do a lot in a short time. It equips you well for the workplace.

University allows us a lot of independence and can provide a diverse and interesting social life. We talked about how university life differs from school and how hard we would need to work to be successful at university but how flexible we might be with our time.

Andrew talked about the importance of choosing the right subjects for GCSE and A level to help ‘train us in the right areas’, developing skills which are useful for us and which strengthen us. Some subjects help us develop analytical skills, logical thinking and reasoning. 

Andrew wrapped up his talk with his key principle that “people with ability should also have the opportunity to study at the best universities and to be successful.” For the ESIP girls this will require nothing more than hard work, a passion for their subject, excellent A level grades (which come from hard work and passion), working, thinking and reading outside your core school subject work and above all being able to demonstrate this.

After a series of excellent questions from the girls (including one from Ada which put him on the spot) Andrew left us with a thought provoking idea. On average an Oxbridge graduate pays one million pounds in tax in their lifetime – in comparison the cost of an University education, especially supported by scholarships and student loans, is a small sum and a great investment.

For Charlie’s workshop the girls split into teams of four. Charlie kicked off with the What’s It Worth exercise and the girls tried to identify a number of solutions. Each team of four took turns to come to the front and present their solutions including some of the quietest girls in the whole group.

The session focused on logical thinking, collaboration (i.e. teamwork, one of our Big 5 skills) and working in pairs. We were to ‘do things and explain how to do things’. We learned that in Maths, the answer is not always the most important thing and that there is rarely a single way of solving problems. Some of the girls (and teachers!) struggled with the problems but we all gave it a go and developed confidence from working together and supporting each other.

We played the Got It game and the girls helped Simon devise a strategy to beat the computer – after he failed on his first attempt!

We headed to the old part of Gonville and Caius for an excellent two course hot lunch in the Dining Hall and had a long table to ourselves.

Two Cambridge undergraduates led us on a tour of the university buildings including the library and junior common room and we got an appreciation of what it was like to be in a small college community of less than a hundred students and something of Cambridge as a whole. 

Charlie started the second session with a taste of number theory and a ‘multiple of threes’ game. The challenge was to give any five numbers where the sum of any three would not be divisible by three - to beat Charlie. After a considerable number of attempts we realised it wasn’t possible and Charlie demonstrated the mathematical reason why. We also learned that if you want to find whether a number is divisible by three then simply add the individual digits of the number together and if that sum is a multiple of three then so is the number itself.

We played a number of other games from the NRICH website and related what we were doing to the concepts of Thinking Mathematically, Problem Solving and Elegant Solutions. We were able to relate the maths and problem solving to wider elements of ESIP, how you overcome challenges and why maths is relevant to everything we do in life. The girls made good use of these ideas as they reflected on their experiences at the end of the day.

It was good to see a number of the quieter girls coming out of their shells and their increased commitment to overcoming their set challenges. Every single student had an opportunity to present from the front of the room. The enthusiasm and collaboration between girls is becoming infectious.

The day ended just before 4pm and we headed home to London on our respective schools coaches arriving back around ten past five. This is the last ESIP session until after Easter but we think we have left the girls with plenty of food for thought!

The big messages to take home were ‘work smart, think outside the box and demonstrate your strengths and enthusiasm for the wider subject’.