Organised through the University of Bath Work Experience Team, the Centre hosted two A-level students for a week in June. Throughout the week the students developed their research skills, exploring different themes within the field of public health. This included meeting with Centre members Dr Darragh McGee and Dr Sophie Braznell to better understand their research, completing an afternoon of field work in Bath city centre, and putting together a presentation on their research findings. The students were supervised for the week by Sarah Trolley, PhD student. Sarah comments:

The students practiced a number of key skills throughout the week, it was great to get young people involved in research and they delivered an excellent presentation detailing their findings on their chosen research topic.

At the end of the week, the students were asked to reflect on their experience and summarise what they had achieved throughout and what they would take from the experience.

We wish both students the best of luck with their remaining studies.

Grace's week at the Centre for 21st Century Public Health

My name is Grace, I am a year 12 student doing my A levels in biology, psychology and PE. I have completed a week of work experience at the University of Bath in public health.

Monday

We had an introduction to the University of Bath which was very helpful, and everyone involved was very friendly. I got to meet lots of people in Year 12 who were also doing work experience, and we went through scenarios which might help us during our work experience. We then met our work experience supervisor and everyone we would be working with and started to think about our research and what our field work would be later in the week. I started to look at researching and using references, which I was not very confident on, so this helped me to develop my referencing skills. This first day helped me to build my confidence with meeting new people and also allowed me to see what the University of Bath is like.

Tuesday

We started the day by reading examples of research and looked more into what we wanted to research which helped me see and understand how to structure and complete research. I had a meeting with Dr Sophie Braznell who shared more of what she researches and shared further information. We started to put together our presentation for later in the week and plan our field work. This helped me with my understanding of how to plan and carry out experiments and field work.

Wednesday

At the start of the day, we went into the centre of Bath to carry out our field work. As part of this field work, I needed to make a table and record the results of what we saw. When we came back, we had a meeting with Dr Darragh McGee, He shared lots of information about what he researches and his book on gambling in sport. He was very friendly and talked to us about what we planned to do after A levels, and we talked more about the University. This helped me to think about what University I may want to go to and what courses and options there are for me.

Thursday

I started the day by finishing my presentation on my research by adding the results of the field work. This allowed me to develop my graph making skills as I looked at doing a geolocated graph. I then looked at the possible strengths and limitations of our field work and some reflections. We then went through the PowerPoint and started to think about a discussion and what else to add. This allowed me to think about how I could have improved the field experiment.

Friday

I started the day by writing this blog about my week, which has allowed me to reflect on my experience and what I have learnt. Later I did my presentation to my supervisor and Dr Sophie Braznell who was interested in looking at what we found. This allowed me to develop my public speaking and build my confidence in taking about what I have researched. We then went to a closing session with all the year 12 students and talked about and reflected on our work experiences at the University of Bath.

Overall, it has been a very interesting and helpful week as everyone was very kind and helped me think about what I want to do after A levels and what opportunities there are. I developed my skills of writing, researching and talking to people, which are all very helpful for later on in life and my subjects I am currently studying.