Two Cambridge University offers for Medicine

We have both taken part in ‘CREST’ club, which is a project that many young people take part in across the UK. It involves having to plan, perform, and evaluate a science experiment of your choice, with a topic that had to be centred around one of the ‘STEM’ subjects. There was a wide range of topics that were chosen, including questions about music, food, and cleaning. Alex and her partner did an experiment on ‘Does the music genre you listen to have an affect on your health’ The practical element of our experiment involved playing a plethora of different music genres to a wide group of people to see whether what they were listening to had an effect on their heart rate. This had some interesting results, however it was as we expected. The music that tended to make people have the highest heart rate was ‘EDM’ because it was very high energy. The one that made people have the lowest heart rate was ‘Classical’ music which was also expected because the songs we chose were very calming. Morven and Evie explored ‘What dish soap product has the best reaction when in contact with a fat based liquid?’. We did this by placing drops of food colouring in certain fatty liquids and then measured the distance they travelled when they were repelled by the liquid soaps. We found many interesting things and were able to work out that some own brand soaps worked more effectively than specialised company made soaps. Additionally, we learnt how to structure a report and now know how to transfer these skills into future experiments.

We both found that ‘CREST’ club was extremely rewarding and allowed us to work nearly completely independently and creatively. It allowed us to work with our friends on a topic we were interested in, and we got to learn along the way because we would plan our experiments on our own.

Imperial Engineering Project

Vysali Sivakumar, Eliza Beresford and Sia Patel Year 12 January 2022 saw the launch of an engineering and science project with Imperial College London that involves the year 12 physics students from NHEHS working in collaboration with science students from local schools, including Drayton Manor, Cardinal Wiseman and Greenford to solve the ever-growing problem of sustainable agriculture and how it can be put into practice around the world. The aim of the project is to stretch students beyond the curriculum and provide networking and learning opportunities to wider groups of students. Our main task is to design a solution that can contribute to ‘a greener life’ by

Photography by: Noushi Hirachand, Johanna preventing loss of biodiversity and making Kolawole and Lexie Swaine agriculture and everyday life more sustainable. We had a lecture from an Imperial PhD student who spoke to us about her work in conservation that has taken her to various different countries. Over the next few months we will be working in-person and online with our groups to produce a report and presentation explaining our proposal, which we will then deliver to academics at Imperial in April. The winning team will hopefully have their design made into reality and possibly have the chance to present it along the Great Exhibition Road Festival next year. We all thought that this would be a great opportunity to develop our problem solving skills and provide an insight into the real-world applications of science and engineering. Hopefully we can devise innovative solutions to a problem that is affecting so many countries around the world.

Maya Shah and Isobel Thornton, both in Year 13, have recently received offers to study medicine at The University of Cambridge. We asked Maya about her experience while applying for the university and why she applied in the first place….

Maya writes: "I think the main reason I applied to Cambridge was the impression it gave & the friendly students I met when visiting my sister there; though it's reputation as one of the world's top unis definitely helped! For medicine, you have to take the BMAT (BioMedical Admissions Test) and then be interviewed before you can receive an offer from Cambridge. After already dedicating my summer to the UCAT (UK Clinical Aptitude Test), I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of another admissions test but I Photography by: Noushi Hirachand, Johanna Kolawole and Lexie Swaine knew I had to work hard if I wanted a chance of an interview, which paid off. The interview for Oxbridge is different from most medical schools as it is more science-based, rather than more skills/personality-based. So I made sure I had read around certain topics I had written about in my personal statement & and things that had been in the news: Alzheimer's Disease, medical inequalities, the Covid-19 vaccines. You also need to know your A-level subjects well as they may ask you questions on this or need this knowledge to answer certain questions. I also did a mock interview with my sister's friend who is a Cambridge medic which was extremely helpful as it got me used to the style of questions asked & when I didn't know the answer she gave me hints to help me get there. My actual interview was quite different to what I expected, and this threw me off a bit and afterwards I actually thought it had gone very badly & I really thought I had little chance of an offer, so I was very pleasantly surprised come the 25th of January."

We are both very grateful to be a part of the Franklin team this year. We loved reading everybody’s articles and it was impressive to see such a wide variety of topics being covered. This experience has broadened our knowledge and we hope that everyone can find an article that stands out to them. A big thank you to everyone who submitted their articles and to anyone who was part of the team, we are delighted with the final product. We hope you enjoy! Sylvie Reay and Aditi Aryal, Editors Sophie Alexander, Illustrator Shivani Parthipun, Eva Hitchens, Shreya Gover, Alexia Suceveanu, Noushi Hirachand, Johanna Kolawole and Lexie Swaine, Photographers Ms Brown, Editor in Chief

And last but not least…

… Footage from NHEHS "Chick Cam", captured at 3pm on the 11th of March 2022, in advance of Science Week 2022.

Interested in writing for The Franklin? Contact Ms Brown, l.brown@nhehs