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You completed placements with The Brilliant Club, a charity working with PhD students to help school students from less advantaged backgrounds succeed at university. Can you tell us what that involved?
I completed my placements with The Brilliant Club at three different schools, from 2014 to 2016, two at senior schools and one at a primary school. I taught my primary school pupils a pre-designed philosophy course about fairness. For my placements in senior schools, I designed and taught courses based on my doctoral research into the way the EU regulates risky technologies. My students were selected to take the course on the basis of their interest in law or, in some cases, science.
What did you enjoy most about the placements?
The most enjoyable things about the placements were meeting and interacting with my pupils and introducing them to new ideas which they would not be exposed to in their normal school syllabuses.
How did studying at UCL help you in your career?
I became aware of The Brilliant Club via an email to one of the UCL email lists advertising for new tutors and I chose to apply both to gain some teaching experience and to contribute to widening participation. Having undertaken the placements (which also included some teacher training), I was able to demonstrate teaching experience which I believe contributed to securing my lectureship job. I may not have become aware of that opportunity had I not been a student at UCL.
