UCL History delivers Widening Participation Summer School

Hi Jack and Nina, thanks so much for chatting to us! From your perspective, what was the purpose of the summer school?

Jack

Making the decision to come to university is never an easy one. What course do I study? At which university? Where? Will I make any friends? Will I fit in? Can I afford it? What support is available, and how do I access it? In short: Is this the right decision for me? Every potential university student must do their best to answer these difficult questions. Moreover, for any individuals who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented in higher education, a further question is often asked: Is university even a possibility for me? Added to this is the global uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision today is tougher than it ever has been. 

The purpose of the Making History Summer School is to help with this. Everyone who ran this year’s summer school stood united in a single aim: to demystify the process of applying to university and give each student an experience of what studying for a BA in History is really like. Rather than hearing “University is not for you” we all sought to shout as loud as we can: “You can do this”, “There is a place for you here if you want it” and “We will support you through this process”. The ethos behind UCL and the Making History Summer School is one of an exciting, powerful, inclusivity – an energy that you can’t help getting swept up in! 

Modelling our programme on the Making History course undergraduates are exposed to in their first year, for a week in August, students are shown a different side to the discipline of History they are seldom taught in the classroom. So, whether students are passionate about studying undergraduate History, or want to pursue English literature or Maths, they are just curious about what is on offer or don’t want to go to university at all, we hope to have given them helpful information and tools to confidently make their decisions.

Nina

The UCL ‘Making History’ summer school 2020 was a history programme run for year 12 students from widening participation backgrounds. Based on the compulsory ‘Making History’ module in first year, the purpose of the summer school was to give prospective students a flavour of the academic and non-academic side of university. The summer school provided disadvantaged students from state school backgrounds a chance to engage with academic material and get a sense of what it would be like to study history at an undergraduate level. 

What was your role?

Jack

My role on the summer school was that of lead tutor. Working together with UCL’s Widening Participation team and UCL History’s own widening participation officer, Dr Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, it was my responsibility to plan and organise the programme of activities for students to complete, in addition to conducting all teaching for the seminar sessions. Ensuring the summer school was ‘online ready’ was a big task but with help from the individuals above, as well as the team of UCL student leaders during the running of the week itself, it was achievable. 

Nina

My role as a student leader was to assist both Jack and Florence running the summer school as well answering any questions participants had throughout the week on an online mentoring platform. During the week the student leaders gave an insight into university in the form of 2 Q&A sessions which involved answering questions the students put to us. We had a whole array of questions and covered topics such as UCL halls, finance, societies and studying in London.  

What were the activities involved? 

Jack

So many! The students had a jam-packed agenda filled with diverse and interesting tasks to get stuck into throughout the week. A typical day included activities such as: watching lectures delivered by UCL historians on homelessness in 19th and 20th century London or learning about the historical theory and practice of material culture; listening to podcasts and reading articles; working with mapping software that visualised the changing space of London; taking a virtual tour of the British Museum; and, of course, the best part – our seminars – where students as a group asked questions of the concepts and ideas they were learning about and were able to get an experience of university-style learning. 

More generally, the week gravitated around the theme of ‘material culture’ as students learned how to navigate London’s archives to understand how sources such as statues, maps and archaeological remains can be analysed historically as evidence of how London is being ‘made’ and ‘re-made’; they observed how items around them – from their clothing to their mobile phones – serve as evidence of the interconnections we constantly are ‘making’ with others in a global world; and participants were exposed to the diverse approaches – of which, feminism, queer theory, literary studies, ancient and modern languages, archaeology, anthropology, social theory, and philosophy are just a few – that historians use to ask questions of their sources. I hope there was something for everyone!

Nina

Despite being an online alternative as a result of the pandemic, the summer school still managed to host a range of activities! This involved the students engaging with pre-recorded lectures and online material, and then coming to discuss their thoughts and ideas in live seminars. The week also involved other activities such as a quiz night, an admission’s talk and a personal statement workshop. The Making history summer school culminated in a presentation delivered by each student on an object they’d chosen from the British museum which allowed the students to choose topics that particularly appealed to them, which included objects from Ancient Rome right up to twenty-first century African coffins!

What do you think worked well?

Jack

Firstly, I was incredibly impressed by how, even at such a stressful time, every student took to the activities with gusto. Under normal circumstances, students would stay onsite in UCL accommodation and would be taught on campus, yet, even when communicating via a laptop screen, the enthusiasm shown by all the participants showed that the themes and messages of the summer school were engaging. 

Secondly, I believe that the summer school was able to leave students more informed about the university experience and application process. Student leaders such as Nina were invaluable because they could share their current experiences of what it is like to be a UCL History undergraduate, and the UCL Admissions talk helped dispel a lot of anxiety about personal statements.

Last, and by no means least, a personal highlight was to watch the presentations on an item from the collections of the British Museum that each student had been working on throughout the course of the week. These projects – on objects such as a Greek amphora (6th century BC), an Achaemenid armlet from the Oxus River Treasure of Tajikistan (4th/5th century BC), a statue of Roman Emperor Augustus (1st century BC), a Viking arm ring (9th/10th century), Ming Dynasty ceramic (early 16th century), a musical clock (late 16th century), an Asante gold knife (late18th/early 19th century), a 19th century Swahili Kiti cha enzi (‘chair of power’), and eagle-shaped coffin (21st century) – were both chronologically and thematically diverse. These presentations were the culmination of the summer school and of every student’s hard work and research, as they brought all that they had learned into practice. Bravo!

Nina

The widening participation team did a fantastic job of transforming this traditionally residential programme into an online alternative. Also, the programme received a brilliant response from the participants, with each student engaging excellently with each session. It was so nice to see how enthusiastic each student was throughout the week in the various live sessions, particularly in their final presentations! 

What do you hope the impact has been?

Jack

I hope we gave all the students the chance to step outside the national curriculum and reveal that History is more than just source packs and revision guides; the objects, places and people that exist all around us are ‘documents’ to be discovered and studied. Hopefully, too, our summer school participants were able to see the value of an education at UCL and all the benefits that living in London offers. We may even welcome some students to UCL History in the next few years, but whatever their decisions, our sole aim was to help them make the right one. Good luck!

Nina

Hopefully with this programme students were able to get a taste of studying history at university, specifically learning more about the course on offer at UCL. We hope that the summer school helped to dispel some myths about higher education as well as giving a genuine insight into university. As the students were from widening participation backgrounds, we hope we provided them with helpful information on all aspects of university. Regardless of whether the students go on to study history at university, we hope the summer school was beneficial to each and every student in some way!