Student Voice Week in STEM

This year for Student Voice Week, the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics is running four events for you to have your say in STEM!

In the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences, we’ll be hearing from student interns, who gained valuable experience whilst helping the University to tackle some of our most challenging problems. Student interns who worked in the School over the summer will share their experiences of contributing to development and improvement of aspects of student support and induction.

They will describe what they have gained and lead a discussion with students and staff to explore ideas about how the intern model might work for future collaborations. Some potential areas that interns could help the University tackle might, for example, include how to build community; eliminating awarding gaps; supporting students for remote exams.

In the School of Mathematics & Statistics, female and non-binary students comprise around 39% of students on undergraduate qualifications and around 25% of the students on our MSc in Mathematics. We’re keen to hear your thoughts on ways in which we can support you through your studies and your motivation for studying on different qualifications.

We’ll also share with you some of our insights into how the age profiles and motivations of students differ by gender, and discuss events around the UK and online resources of particular interest to female and non-binary students.

Staying within Mathematics & Statistics, we are also running an event on decolonising the mathematics curriculum. To combat the mistaken notion that mathematics is a white male preserve—a notion reinforced by the fact that much of the mathematics taught at undergraduate level is named for male European mathematicians of the 19th century—we are proposing to develop an online resource containing source material exemplifying the rich global diversity of the development of mathematics.

We shall be showing sample sources, such as mathematical problems taken from a 9th century Sanskrit text, to illustrate what we have in mind. We are very keen to get suggestions from students for both the content and the design of the resource.

Also look out for the Scholarship Conference, at which the STEM Faculty’s scholarship centre, eSTEeM, will showcase the research taking place into teaching and learning along with the scholarship centres from the other Faculties. Come along to hear the impact of our scholarship, the challenges and priorities for scholarship, and the opportunities and support available for students that want to get involved either as participants or researchers.

We look forward to hearing your voice!