Feeling Future Ready
25 June 2024 - Academic
Mentioning the word ‘Future’ can elicit a lot of responses; excitement, apprehension, thoughts of robots ruling the world! After an intensive three days, we’re hoping that the first word that the Lower Sixth now think of is ‘Ready!’
The three days of our Future Ready enrichment event was designed to afford pupils the time and space to consider their university applications in more detail with the expert support and guidance of their tutor and subject specialists and to set them up for a productive summer holiday full of research and academic exploration. Each day focused on a particular strand:
- UK and US application logistics and overall strategy;
- Departmental time in their area of interest;
- Admissions test practice;
- A mock graduate assessment day facilitated by James Darley of the Transform Society.
We were delighted with how engaged and excited our girls were, and it was a pleasure to hear fantastic feedback from Heads of Department and external speakers about their efforts.
Mrs Jacky Tidbury
Director of Sixth Form
University Preparation Department Day
The University Preparation Department Day was a truly enriching experience, providing a unique learning experience. It allowed us to engage with our chosen subject on a deeper level than within the usual constraints of the A level syllabus and gave us a taster of the higher-level material that we will encounter at university. We explored topics varying from revenge tragedy, the art of war, and constructing the past to business aims and indifference curves. New areas covered included decoding medieval legal texts, logical thinking, tackling scholarly articles and thinking aloud. Our success in taking on new challenges, such as scientific experiments and analysing a 17th-century Bill of Mortality, was rewarding and enjoyable. An important focus of the day was preparing us for the upcoming university application process. Each department provided an in-depth session on creating a compelling personal statement, and many also offered the chance to sit a practice admissions test. Ultimately, the day was highly beneficial, instilling us with confidence as we took our first steps on the UCAS journey, and also highly interesting. I walked away feeling very excited about studying History in the near future!
Freya
LVI
Seniors’ Forum
A valuable way to gain insight into life after Wycombe Abbey comes from former pupils and we delighted to hear from Isabel Sobowale (C342, Cloister, 2021), Wing Hei Woo (C361, Pitt, 2023), Harriat Bishop (C356, Airlie, 2023), Eleanor Stevenson (C346, Wendover, 2021), Phoebe Richardson (C363, Shelburne, 2023), Lauren Pang (C353, Rubens, 2022), Mani Etuokwu (C346, Wendover, 2021) and Anna McFadzean (C351, Cloister, 2022).
For the Seniors’ Forum, we heard from eight Wycombe Abbey Seniors who left the School in the last four years and shared their experiences about university applications and life at university so far. This proved invaluable, and we gained great firsthand insight into a process that, up until that point, had seemed incredibly daunting. Hearing about their successes, despite challenges faced along the way, helped reduce some anxiety and (at least in my case) provide some much-needed confidence about navigating our future academic journeys. When listening to Mani Etuokwu, a second-year medical student at Cambridge who is also studying Classics during her intercalated year, I felt I was looking into the future I would like to have.
Scarlett
LVI
Mock Graduate Assessment Day
The Mock Graduate Assessment Day saw us learn more about life after university and how we can thrive in the modern-day world of work. We started with a talk by James Darley from Transform Society about the future of the job market and how we can use AI to help us with our future careers instead of it hindering us. The next session was about career resilience, where James spoke about how we can improve our chances of getting a job, particularly in Graduate Assessment Centres. He told us about different aspects of job interviews and how recruiters choose who to hire, which will prove helpful when we apply for jobs. We were then tested on what we learnt through a mock group exercise where we acted as an advisory group for a small bank, discussing the pros and cons of expanding to online banking. This exercise was an entertaining and interesting way to put the skills James taught us into practice. The final session was about how to use our time at university to look for a career path and gain transferrable skills effectively. This was followed by mock interviews with Wycombe Abbey parents and staff. Getting feedback from our interviews allowed us to see which areas we were good at and where we can improve. To end the day, we used interactive situational judgement tests where we were tested on our instincts in real-life career-related situations. Overall, it was an amazing and enjoyable way to prepare for our future.
Madeline
LVI
Keep up to date with further news from Wycombe Abbey on our social channels.