Applications are still open for this year’s Seren Network and Jesus College Summer School, so to give students a better idea of what to expect during the week-long programme we spoke to Matt Williams, Access Fellow as Jesus College. 

Hi everyone, I’m Matt Williams, the Access Fellow at Jesus College, of the University of Oxford. It’s my great privilege to be organising the Third Annual Oxford-Seren Summer School from 19-23 August.

We’ve got 75 all-expenses-paid spaces for year-12 participants in the Seren Network to come and stay with us in Oxford for a week of academic taster sessions themed on ‘Earth’s Future’.

With the Extinction Rebellion and Mothers Rise Up campaigns there’s a lot of buzz about the Earth’s Future.

In fact, the UN has given us all a deadline of just eleven years (up to 2030) to tackle climate change. For me, it’s all pretty scary!

But, knowledge is power! I could bury my head in the sand and fret over what may be or I could arm myself with the knowledge and tools to do something.

That was my inspiration for this year’s Seren Summer School theme.

We will be offering an interdisciplinary set of lectures, seminars and tutorials given by our world-class academics. These will be academically stretching but also empowering.

It doesn’t matter whether you are leaning towards a degree in the natural sciences, social sciences, medicine, arts or humanities — there will be something for you.

Specifically, there’ll be lectures on (amongst other things) the meteorology and geology of climate change, the plausibility of space colonisation, future dynamics in global health, the development of ecological literature, and the politics of globalisation.

Besides lectures, there will be seminars that more will closely develop subject-related skills.

We will offer everyone a chance to experience Oxford’s famous tutorials, with very small group discussion of your ideas.

For this year, there will also be an essay prize celebrating the teachers that helped one of our former students get into Oxford.

That ex-student has very generously donated £625,000 to help us keep the Seren Summer School going for years to come!

As well as all the academic enrichment, we’ll also take you to some of our amazing local museums, and we’ll have a film night for you to relax and enjoy.

It’s a summer school for anybody in Seren who’s considering applying to universities like Oxford.

You do not need to be planning an application to Oxbridge, but, if you are, it will be a very valuable experience.

Last year we were able to substantially sharpen up the applications of those who attended, with our sessions on writing competitive applications and performing well at interview.

If you’d like more information, feel free to contact me: matthew.williams@jesus.ox.ac.uk.

And, if you’re ready to make an application, please do so online here: https://www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/form/seren-summer-school.

The deadline is 7th June.

I look forward to working with you!