immersed I MM E RS E E DU CATI O N ALU M NI MAGAZINE
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immerse education alumni magazine
WELCOME
Summer fun! Welcome to the second edition of the Immersed alumni magazine! We are delighted to be sharing with you the latest news and developments at Immerse Education. We had a great summer meeting our 2019 participants in Cambridge! Our November 2019 edition celebrates a 2017 alumna who returned to as a Mentor with Immerse this summer find out about her experience and her “behind the scenes” insights! We also have articles exploring ways to improve your writing and the importance of Sir William Harvey. We love to hear from our alumni so if you would like to contribute your own ideas, articles or stories to this magazine then you are always welcome to get in touch! Our alumni network exists for our alumni and it’s a great opportunity for you to contribute your thoughts and personality to the Immersed community. Best wishes, The Immerse Team
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Contents 6 10 14 16 20 22 25 26
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M E N T O R U P D AT E
INT RODU C ING . . . SE J AL KAR MAR KAR SUBJECT: MEDICINE
SIR W IL L IA M HARV EY: EXPER IME NTAL PHYSICIAN A LU M NI OPPORTUNITIES STUDY SKILLS
7 T IPS TO IM PROV E YOUR WR ITING IM M ERSE NEWS G L O B A L E D U C AT I O N
OU R 2 0 1 9 SCHOLARSHIP WINNE RS 2 0 2 0 SCHOLA RSHIP OPPORTUNITIES SPOTLIGHT ON:
BA RC ELONA
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M E N T O R U P D AT E
Introducing... Sejal Karmarkar 6 \
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WE SPOKE TO SEJAL, ALUMNA AND 2019 MENTOR TO HEAR ABOUT HER TIME WITH IMMERSE AND WHAT KEEPS HER BUSY! – When did you attend Immerse? I attended Immerse in the summer of 2017. I chose to study the Medicine course and was living in St Catherine’s College! – What are your favourite memories of your time with Immerse as a participant? Definitely the friends that I made in Immerse. I never thought I would become so close to people from halfway around the world in two weeks, but as soon as we met each other we got on so well and I can happily say I have made lifelong friends from Immerse. My best memory is when we went on impromptu college tours with two of the mentors and got to explore the beauty of Cambridge with amazing people. The organised punting was also a highlight of my time there! – What impact did the programme have on you? – I think the main impact was inspiring me to apply to the University of Cambridge. Although the work I did in class was challenging, it was so interesting and I realised the supervision- style of teaching my teacher used, and that they use at Cambridge, was something I loved. The mentors also played a big role in this as they were so friendly and I got on so well with so many of them which is not what I was expecting! I had heard lots of rumours about Cambridge and Oxford students being weird and not sociable but when I came to Immerse I realised that wasn’t the case at all! – Do you have any confessions from your Immerse summer programme? I stayed up after curfew with my friends almost every night and we managed to avoid the mentor night patrol every time except issue 2
once! It was quite embarrassing because five of us hid in a tiny cupboard when we heard him knocking on the door and tried to pretend we weren’t there but he knew we were so we had to sheepishly walk out while he watched us. – What’s life like at Cambridge? It’s very intense but also very enjoyable. I’m busy in all aspects, not just work, but with extra-curriculars, socialising and sport as well! It’s a once in a lifetime experience and although sometimes you get no time to rest, it’s busy in the best way possible. – What’s your greatest achievement? Probably getting into Cambridge to study Medicine! Preparation for interviews admissions tests etc. was so much hard work but it paid off in the end! I am also very proud of being selected as college representative coordinator for CATS Cambridge which stands for cancer awareness in teenagers and young people society. The CATS campaign is national and is aimed at spreading awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer amongst young people to promote early detection - please do visit their website and keep up to date with all their events!
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– What motivated you to return as an Immerse Summer Mentor? – I really enjoyed the course as a student and also loved getting to know the mentors and so when I was looking for a summer job, Immerse is the first place I turned to because I knew that, although it was technically a job, it wouldn’t feel like one because I would be having loads of fun as well. – What was your favourite part of your mentor experience? – Getting to know my mentor family and seeing them make friends and flourish on the camp. I absolutely loved spending time with them and was so happy at the end when I saw that my mentees who had not spoken to anyone, been really shy and unenthusiastic, were now enjoying themselves, making friends and taking part in loads of the evening activities. I also loved getting to know the other mentors I was working with - they were an incredible bunch of people and I’ve made some really good friends through the summer school. – What “behind-the-scenes” insights can you share with our alumni that they might not know? – I’m not sure about mentors in other colleges, but night patrol was one of our favourite things to do. I was a mentor at Queens’ and we used to go in pairs and scour every staircase like we were in a spy movie trying to bust an after-curfew party. We would get so excited that if we found one we would message the entire mentor group chat so we could all make the bust at the same time! Sounds quite sad but it was actually so fun.
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– What advice do you have for our alumni who are still in high school? – If you are unsure about what you want to do for A-levels and at uni I would honestly just pick things that you enjoy! Especially if you want to apply to Cambridge because the courses are so broad and modules so flexible that you really don’t have to know exactly what you want to do. Also, if you do want to apply to Cambridge then don’t think you aren’t good enough- definitely apply!! The worst thing you can do is self-select because you think you aren’t going to get in - a huge proportion of applicants apply not expecting anything at all and end up getting in! – Do you have a message for your mentor family? – Just a big thank you to them for being such an amazing group of big personalities and making me laugh every day! I miss them a lot! (our family was way better than anyone else’s because you guys were so great!)
Mini alumni updates MAKSIM SHYMANOVICH Maksim participated in Immerse in both 2018 and 2019. He has established his own businesses, including braceletts.eu, and will be attending business school from next year.
LUIZA GARAVELO Luiza studied Architecture with Immerse in 2018. She is now studying Architecture at the University of Westminster in London.
CHARLOTTE INCHBOLD-ABEY Charlotte is in her final year at university studying Midwifery. She studied Medicine with Immerse in 2016. Best of luck with your final exams, Charlotte!
Alumni update to share? We love hearing from our alumni! Get in touch to share your story or just to say hello! A L U M N I @ I M M E R S E . E D U C AT I O N
SUBJECT: MEDICINE
Sir William Harvey: Experimental Physician by Kieran Kejiou
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“What do you want to be when you grow up?” The surgeon’s eyes laughed above his mask, while saline arced from the girl’s knee, pooling at his feet. Like an orthopaedic Manneken Pis. “No idea,” I replied. Never thought I’d be asked that at 22, but I did enjoy his choice of words. After all, I wear a beard on my face, a degree on my wall and letters after my name. I even own a cheeseboard, which I use to eat cheese. And we’re talking real cheese – none of that “Babybel as a snack” nonsense. The kind that looks and smells like ogre pus. I consider myself a proper adult. While I haven’t picked a specialty yet, I still harbour that romantic hope of discovering something that makes it into GCSE science textbooks. They’re way cooler than Nature or the news. If we’re teaching something to all young people, you know it’s a pretty important piece of knowledge. So, when I grow up, I suppose I’d like to be like Sir William Harvey – the doctor who first described the circulatory system. And treated two kings. But mostly the circulatory system. (Still, imagine “Royal Physician to two monarchs” on my CV…)
THE (ADOPTED) PHYSICIAN OF CAMBRIDGE Born in Folkestone, Kent on 1st April 1578, William Harvey was the son of a merchant, educated at the King’s School in Canterbury from 1588 to 1592. The following year, Harvey was admitted to study for a BA degree at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. issue 2
‘Yes. Just like this. But with more knee’
Note, for my fellow history-of-Cambridge geeks, that I’m not specifying his subject because, to this day, you do not graduate from the University of Cambridge with a BA ‘in’ anything. Back then, the degree was for the study of the liberal arts. Some Latin, a bit of Greek, some logic thrown in for fun. I’m building up to a minor secret: it’s quite likely that Harvey never actually took the Cambridge medicine course! During this period, Cambridge medics would study for six years to attain the MB degree, before five more years to gain the MD needed to practice medicine. Harvey did neither. Instead, upon taking his BA in 1597, he vanished to Europe for a bit before popping up at the University of Padua in 1598, studying under famed surgeon Hieronymous Fabricius. Harvey took his MD from Padua in 1602, prompting Cambridge to just hand him an MD later that year!
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TOPPLING GIANTS Soon after, Harvey began practicing medicine and was elected to fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 1607. We don’t know much about his pursuits beyond his patients, but as Lumleian lecturer to the College, Harvey unveiled his research in his 1616 talks. In 1628, he published a book of his complete findings, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus. Harvey’s book and lectures didn’t quite tear down the establishment in frenzied revolution. Instead, his findings would politely challenge the facts of the time. Teachings long enshrined and revered as gospel since the fall of the Roman Empire, were a symptom of the tight academic control exerted by the Church in Europe at the time. These educated clergymen took great pains to reconcile the findings of the ancient physicians with Biblical scripture, weaving a cohesive body of medical knowledge. Prominent among those physicians of old was Galen, a celebrated and learned scholar who built a framework to understand the inner workings of the human body, using logic and animal dissections. Galenic teachings then, with the blessing of the Church, became the 12 \
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scripture of the medical profession, to be accepted without question in the West for nearly 1500 years. Galen’s followers believed that digested food was turned into blood by the liver, before being sent through the veins to nourish the tissues of the body. The tissues would eat it up, while the liver continually made more blood to keep them fed. Some of this blood would be enriched with ‘pneuma’ from the air in the lungs, creating a vital spirit needed by all tissues. The heart would expand, sucking in this enriched blood, before squeezing it all out through the arteries. De Mortu Cordis disagreed, with an air of correcting Father Christmas’ economic policy on global gift-giving.
Diagram illustrating Harvey’s tourniquet experiment immerse education alumni magazine
Backed up by his rigorous experimentation and anatomical dissections, Harvey claimed (among other things): • The heart’s expansion is passive while the contraction actively pumps blood • Valves in the veins only permit blood flow towards the heart, not the tissues • More blood is pumped by the heart than could be fully absorbed by the body’s tissues • Therefore, blood moves in the continuous circuit around the body Despite its controversy, Harvey’s model of blood circulation would eventually update Galen’s idea of continuous replenishment. It’s important to realise that this process was slow, and ideas weren’t swapped overnight, especially not by Harvey. His preparedness to challenge Galen was by no means a rejection of his teachings. Indeed, Harvey frequently included ancient teachings in his lectures alongside his own findings. But his approach was to discern how things worked through hypothesis testing and repeated measures, rather than the old way of deducing why things were. William Harvey, while a humble man, would be immensely proud of the new,
more experimental medicine that he helped to birth. Today, Sir William Harvey’s work strolls onto the pages of virtually all biology courses taught in secondary school. And he’s got the posthumous glory of having touched virtually every facet of modern medicine with his model of blood circulation. And he treated two kings… But he also has the more profound honour of ushering truly curious, scientific thought into medicine. The concept of informing medical practice by diligently recording, repeating and measuring began with him. At least in the West… We can talk about the Arabic and Chinese physicians another day! Through Harvey’s time at Cambridge, Gonville & Caius College played a small but important role in his success, adding to the near-legendary mystique of this great city. Whichever route you take here, be it through an Immerse summer programme or a bank holiday getaway, be sure to pay a visit to Caius, where it all started for one of Britain’s greatest clinician-scientists. His are very worthy footsteps for any young scientist or budding physician to follow.
Gonville and Caius College. Famous for its food. Not in a good way.
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ALUMNI OPPORTUNITIES
Become an Immerse Ambassador Could you represent Immerse in your local community?
Recommend our programmes and educational resources to people that you think may be interested whether that’s friends, family, or members of your school community Do you have strong communication skills, the ability to stay organisation, and an independent and proactive approach to tasks? This is a fun opportunity to put voluntary work and concrete examples of your skill set on your CV by sharing your knowledge of something you know lots about: Immerse! As a ‘thank you’ you’ll receive exclusive stash, vouchers and gifts in the post
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Build a Global Network Whatever stage of life you’re at, there are a lot of decisions to be made!
Some of our alumni have now graduated from university and are starting out in the big wide world. Others are choosing their GCSEs. This is an opportunity to provide advice, support and mentorship to younger students interested in your subject, or reconnect with friends you met during Immerse. Our alumni come from all over the world and represent a fantastic array of cultures and ideas but you all have Immerse in common.
To learn more send an email to alumni@immerse.education issue 2
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STUDY SKILLS
7 Tips
to Improve Your Writing Alumna and former mentor, Emilia Persson, gives us her top tips for improving your writing. Whether you’re applying to university, writing essays or writing cover letters for jobs, writing skills are essential at every stage of life.
Tip 1. Variety, not size.
tapping your feet, but since you can’t, let’s use some actual writing examples:
When it comes to sentences, longer is rarely intrinsically better. This is not to say that all sentences should read like a Dick and Jane book, but it’s easy to fall into the mindset that more complex sentences equal better writing. Untrue.
“I woke up. It was cold. The room was dark. I couldn’t find the phone. I had it last night. Now it was gone.”
A technique that some may find helpful is to treat your writing like a piece of jazz music, with the length and the makeup of the sentences standing in for the musical rhythms. Jazz music is not like a waltz, for instance, in which the rhythm remains everpredictable at BUM bum bum, BUM bum bum, BUM bum bum, ad infinitum. (My apologies to waltz fans everywhere.) Good writing should be much more like a jazz piece: BUM! Ba-da-da-dee-da-da-dum-diddy-diddydiddy-diddy-dum! Bob-bop doo wah diddy. Bum! Bum! Diddy-diddy bop!
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“When I woke up that morning, the room temperature caused my breath to hang in the air like tiny storm clouds, and in the darkness I was unable to find the phone which I had placed upon the bedside table just the night before when I returned home from the club at 2am.” “I woke with a start. The room was too cold, and my breath formed tiny clouds in the air. They reminded me of storm clouds. Why? I instinctively reached for the phone, but it was gone from the bedside table. Where was it? I searched my memory of the night before when I returned home from the club where I met Rebecca and her fiance. It was 2am by the phone’s glowing screen when I placed it in its accustomed spot. I must have passed out.”
Which phrase would you rather read? I vote for the third. immerse education alumni magazine
Tip 2. The Spellchecker really is Your Friend First let’s make it perfectly clear; we’re talking about spellchecker, not autocorrect. Autocorrect is NOT your friend. Autocorrect blithely changes “I made the crosscountry team!” to “I made the croissant team!” with nary a beep to warn you of what’s happened. Autocorrect is the know-it-all friend who claims to know best and always orders the octopus tartare for you while you’re still out parking the car. Autocorrect and adverbs hang out together and talk about you behind your back. Spellchecker, on the other hand, is that one good friend whom you can trust to proofread your work with a kind, but critical eye. It doesn’t presume to know what you meant to write, it gently underlines things it’s not sure of with a charmingly squiggly little line. And the more you use it the more you can teach it about your writing habits (both good and bad). Make use of spellchecker to help improve your writing, but don’t just settle for its out-of-thebox settings. Spellchecker only knows to look for what it’s been told to look for, but we all have our little bad habits, such as overused words or sentences that are too long, and this friendly little tool can be set to look for and point out whatever we tell it to look for. How? As you write and revise your work, you’ll undoubtedly stumble upon things that you do that you’d rather not repeat. They may not be “incorrect” per se, but they make your work repetitive or less interesting than you’d like it to be. As you notice these writing quirks, you can program spellchecker to recognize and point them out to you in its subtle, apologetically helpful way. issue 2
In time, you’ll not only have created a much more powerful proofreading tool, but it will also have taught you to be a better writer by pointing out your missteps instead of just quietly changing them for you.
Tip 3. Adverbs are Just Pretending to be Your Friend A well-placed adverb can certainly help to enliven an otherwise lifeless phrase, but too many of them can have your readers reaching for the sick bag. This is true in all kinds of writing, though it’s most frequently given as a tip to beginning (or simply untalented) fictions writers. Let’s look at a re-write of the second phrase above: “When I unexpectedly and violently awoke that morning, the room temperature inexplicably and ominously caused my breath to hang in the air like tiny storm clouds, and in the darkness I was unable to find the phone, which I had habitually and firmly placed upon the bedside table just the night before when I drunkenly and unsteadily returned home from the club at 2am.” OK, that’s an extreme example, but you see my point. Compare that to the third phrase, which contains only one adverb. Again, which would you rather read? Adverbs can become a crutch when you’re trying to breathe more life into listless prose, but usually less is more. Instead of, “William furiously and forcefully placed the bottle onto the table.” try, “William slammed the bottle onto the table in front of me. I’d never seen him so furious.” This has the dual virtue of using a stronger, more expressive verb (slammed) as well as introducing a variation in sentence length. It also provides additional information to the reader; not only was William furious, he was also more furious than the narrator had ever known him to be.
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Tip 4. Snip Those Paragraphs
or acronyms in some places but not in others, and the list goes on.
Yes, there are rules for paragraphs. Yes, they were pounded into your head from an early, impressionable age. But it’s also unavoidably true that endless, unbroken passages of text can be the death of any slight bit of interest your reader might have had in what you’ve got to say.
Inconsistency of any sort, not just in the examples above, can be enough to make some readers give up and read something else. And they might not even know why.
Of course “illegally” shortening paragraphs is more acceptable for some kinds of writing than others. It should be done with caution so as to avoid losing any sense of structure in your writing at all. But in fiction and certain informal writings, it can be not only helpful in making endless paragraphs more readable, it can also be a powerful tool in driving home a point or grabbing the reader’s attention at a crucial moment.
Tip 6. Don’t Tell Me How to Feel
Tip 5. Make up Your Mind, Already Perhaps you’ve experienced the following sort of reaction while reading a piece of writing. The writing is good enough, points are well articulated, sentence length is varied, there are no obvious errors, but there’s something, some little… thing that bothers you about it. It’s like the sensation of walking through one strand of a cobweb, but not being able to find it and swipe it away. The above scenario is often brought on by a certain lack of consistency, and for some it can be crazy-making. A lack of consistency in writing can involve something as simple as using or omitting the Oxford Comma. Whatever your stand on whether or not it should be used, the writer should certainly make a choice and stick with it. Similar choices might include capitalization of headers, punctuation after headers, bolding or unbolding of headers, the use of abbreviations 18 \
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In short, pay attention to the details, make a choice, and stick with it.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who excessively uses “air-quotes” (and by “excessively,” we mean at all)? Or maybe they like to tell jokes and then immediately explain the punchline. Maybe they just like to punctuate a witty remark with a self-congratulatory wink. This is the person readers are reminded of when you use too much formatting in your writing! Formatting exists for a purpose, but that purpose is not to spoon-feed the reader so that they know exactly which words you think are dramatic or particularly note-worthy. If you write well, the reader will know those things without having to be told. Formatting such as bold, italics, and underlining may sometimes be used sparingly, but use them too often and you risk sounding like the old knock-knock- joke: Knock-knock Who’s there? Control freak — now YOU say “control freak who?” Similarly, exclamation points are the devil. Eschew them. Disavow them. With the possible exception of writing dialogue for a play or novel, I’ve never encountered an instance in which an exclamation point is truly necessary. immerse education alumni magazine
Tip 7. One For the Poets If you’re a poetry novice, don’t spend too much time with meter and rhyme. Start with free verse until you’ve amassed the necessary experience and confidence to move to the next level. Rhyme and meter can be tricky things. If you’re a beginner, it’s way too easy for everything to start sounding like “Roses are red; violets are blue,” or “Mary had a little lamb.” Unless you’ve mastered and harnessed the power of more complex constructions, your readers will be too distracted the singsong meter to pay any attention to your brilliant theme. And speaking of theme, every poem should have one. But don’t confuse “theme” with “topic.” The theme of a (good) poem is an idea, or topic combined with an opinion. Suppose you’ve set out to write a poem about a tree. That’s all fine and well, but your poem won’t amount to much if you don’t also start with some sort of opinion about trees (or one tree in particular). Your readers will quickly tire of reading about “bark, rough to the touch,” and “leaves, green as green can be” if there’s no actual opinion being expressed about said bark and leaves. “Trees” is not the theme of a poem. “Trees are nothing but ugly, misshapen reminders of when our romance died in that God-forsaken cabin in the woods,” however… Now that’s much more like it. Of course, all of this sage advice, as with anything else, should be taken with a grain of salt. Rules were made to be broken, so none of this is carved in stone. In general, however, it’s best not to start breaking rules until you’ve learned them well in the first place. Once you’re feeling confident that you’ve learned exactly how these and other rules of writing work, you should feel free to break them as it suits your literary needs issue 2
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H Q U P D AT E
Immerse News Immerse 2019 has been and gone! We don’t know how the time passed so quickly but we do know that we enjoyed every minute of it! It was fantastic to welcome so many young students from all over the world, and to meet you in person. We hope that you’ve stayed in touch with the friends you made and still have fond memories of the activities and everything you learnt. 2019 was our biggest year yet and as we welcome more students from more nationalities the programmes just get better and better. At Immerse HQ we’re already working on arrangements for 2020. Next summer we will be offering even more dates and even more subjects! 13-15 year olds can now study Economics, and we are now offering both Geography and Veterinary Medicine to students aged 16-18. If you know anyone who would love to gain insight into any of the subjects that we offer, don’t forget that as an alumnus you and your friends receive a discount when you refer them!
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ECONOMICS 13-15
GEOGRAPHY 16-18
VETERINARY MEDICINE 16-18
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ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE Alongside our university insight programmes, we are also delighted to be returning with our English as a Foreign Language programme. Hosted at the Royal Hospital School in Suffolk, this programme for 11-15 year olds aims to develop students’ language skills while also providing them with leadership skills for the future.
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BEST MOMENTS OF 2019
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BEST MOMENTS OF 2019
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BEST MOMENTS OF 2019
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Iceland
Canada
Portugal
USA
Dominican Republic
Guyana
Brazil
Sou Afr
GLOBAL E D U C AT I O N
Our 2019 Scholarship Winners
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A B H AYJ E E T S I N G H S A C H A L Canada Abhayjeet was the winner of our 16-18 Essay Competition and studied on the Immerse Medicine programme in 2019. He is the co-founder of Break the Divide, a fantastic organisation which aims to increase awareness and community action to support inuit populations in arctic Canada. He aims to reduce the incidence of suicide among inuit communities which are severely affected by the changes to the environment effected by climate change. immerse education alumni magazine
Russia
Mongolia
Pakistan India
Malaysia
uth rica
Australia
SEEMA KUMARI
INDIGO HENNIG
India
Australia
Seema attended Immerse this summer to study Management having been awarded an Immerse scholarship. She intends to use her increased understanding of business and management to set up a small business in her village where young girls who have been forced into child marriage and can no longer attend school can continue to receive an education through evening classes.
Indigo was the recipient of a scholarship for her winning essay in the 13-15 age category. Her essay explored the potential for engineering to be used in predictive medicine to diagnose and treat autoimmune and viral diseases more efficiently. Her ideas include using mobile phones and smart watches to monitor health and provide recommendations to seek medical advice should the data indicate a potential problem. The full essay is available to read on the Immerse Education website.
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2020 SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Essay Competition
The 2020 Immerse Essay Competition is open! The deadline for submissions is 20th January 2020 www.immerse.education/essay-competition/
Scholarship Programme
Our scholarship programme is also receiving applications. The deadline for this is 13th December 2019 www.immerse.education/scholarship-programme/
SPOTLIGHT ON
Barcelona BEST FREE THINGS TO DO IN BARCELONA
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CATALONIA’S NATIONAL ART MUSEUM Rich in history and featuring works by Gaudí, Catalonia’s National Art Museum is free every Saturday from 3pm. And where there’s a good museum, there’s usually a good cafe...
VIES BRAVES While there are plenty of mountains around for hiking, another exercise option is the free open water swimming tracks along the coast of Barcelona. Maybe not in winter though… 32 \
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LA MERCÈ FESTIVAL Typically hosted in the final week of September, we may have to wait for 2020 but La Mercè Festival is certainly worth waiting for! Featuring ‘fire runs’, human towers, and projections, this is one big street party.
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CASTELL DE MONTJUÏC This fortress is a great reminder of the history surrounding Barcelona. There are museums and galleries inside but access to the grounds is free. This is a great spot for a picnic and for views of the city.
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BUNKERS DEL CARMEL Another great site for understanding this city’s rich history and cultural heritage, the old military bunkers at El Carmel also offer the best view of the city (in our opinion).
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PICASSO MUSEUM With over 4,250 works in the permanent collection, the Picasso Museum provides a comprehensive insight into Picasso’s life and work. There are specific Sundays, and Thursdays when it’s free to visit so check the website in advance!
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GO TO THE BEACH
PARK GÜELL
If it’s sun you want then Barcelona’s beaches are well-known as a popular site to top up your tan. Barceloneta beach is busy and vibrant with great sea-front tapas. If you want somewhere a little quieter, try Platja de la Mar Bella.
For those interested in learning more about Modernism, this UNESCO World Heritage site combines nature with Gaudí. There’s now an exclusion zone which requires paid entry but the vast majority of the park is yours to roam freely.
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PARC DE LA CIUTADELLA Relax in the 70 acre grounds of this green space, and take a stroll around the fountains that may or may not have been influenced by a young Gaudí. A good place for some peace and quiet to soak up the sun.
10 SANTA MARIA DEL MAR Barcelona’s architecture and attractions have a tendency to focus on the past century. Explore the gothic quarter and learn about the medieval heritage of this incredible city. The Santa Maria del Mar cathedral is free every morning and evening.
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