On this page, you will find some recommendations on what to watch, read, listen and do to engage with your subject. As well as feeding your intellectual curiosity, these links may provide useful material for your UCAS statement. Once you have engaged with the links, make sure that you practise putting your thoughts into words with the writing activity at the end.
Watch
Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech, Stanford University
The Astounding Athletic Power of Quadcopters
Read
The World Wide Web – Past, Present and Future
Design Flaw Identified in FIU Bridge Collapse
Listen
The Computer with a Poker Face
Can a Computer Write Shakespeare?
Engineering for Success by Building on Failure
Do
- Enter a competition – There are lots of engineering competitions for schools students that you can participate in. For example, The Big Bang Competition. Entering a competition enables you to think beyond the curriculum and demonstrate your practical interest in engineering or technology.
- Go to a museum – Learning about the history of engineering and computer science can provide an interesting perspective that you might not get in class. Plus, it shows that you have engaged with the subject outside of school. There are museums all round the country, including Bristol, Cambridge, London, Milton Keynes and Manchester.
- Speak to a professional working in the field – There are lots of schemes that can connect you to mentors to offer advice on working as an engineer or computer scientist. These include schemes run by universities (e.g. Imperial College London) and by charities (e.g. Stemmettes). If you can’t find a mentor through a scheme, then ask your teachers if they can connect you with someone in their network.
Write
- To apply to university, you need to demonstrate that you are well informed about the subject and have a strong interest in studying it at greater depth. To get started, practice writing about your subject interests by composing short responses to the following questions:
- What have you watched, read or listened to that has inspired you?
- Why was it interesting?
- What new issues did you learn about?
- What do you want to find out next?
- What excites you about the subject?
- Why do you think studying the subject is important?