 Okay, perhaps we can slowly but surely begin to make a start just because we're limited for time and as you can see there's quite a few of us here this morning so we want to make sure you have a chance to hear from everybody. My name is Dr Hannah Bagawi, I am the co-head of the Economics Department here at SOAS and I'm going to go around and let everyone introduce themselves and then we'll give you a sense of how we're going to run today. So I'll hand over to Fabio first and perhaps once you've done your intro you can call on someone else Fabio to say hello. All right, hello and welcome. My name is Fabio Gigi, I'm representing anthropology today. I'm a medical anthropologist by training and my regional specialisation is Japan. I'll call on Mira. Hello, I'm Dr Mira Sabaratnam from the Department of Politics and International Studies. I'm a specialist in international relations and I've worked on state-building international aid and development and also the colonial and post-colonial questions that arise from the study of politics. Nice to meet you. I'll go to Lucia. Hello everyone, I'm Lucia Kula. I am a lecturer in law and gender. My research focus is the Domindian South Saharan Africa with a focus on Portuguese and French-speaking Africa, the Domindian Gola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Glad to be here today, looking forward to your questions. Call on Amani, sorry. That's fine, we'll go straight to Michael, that's all right. Hi, I'm Mike Jennings. I'm based in the Department for Development Studies. I work on a range of issues around NGOs and aid, religion and development and global health. Welcome everyone, I hope you enjoyed this morning's chat and I'm going to call on Ansoak. Hello, thank you Michael. My name is Ansoak. I'm representing Scroble Finance and Management. So today I would like to help you with any questions for BSc Management and BSc Accounting and Finance degree. And I will pass to the Tarazza. Hi, I'm Teresa. I have a PhD in economics. I've been working here at SOAS for a year and a half now and I teach econometrics which is applied statistics for economics. I don't know who's still left. Hello everyone, thanks Teresa. So Teresa's representing the Economics Department because I'm actually here in the capacity to chair this particular session. So the first thing we thought we would do is post some questions to the panelists and the first question we thought you as prospective students might be interested in is to hear what are the urgent questions or challenges in the particular subject areas the panelists teach on and research on. So perhaps we'll go with Mike Jennings first if that's all right, Mike. Thanks Hannah. I mean to the extent to which I think development studies engages with all of the key global issues that are a priority at the moment, issues around obviously poverty, social injustice and inequality, migration, violence, conflict and so on, climate change and global health. But I think one of the big questions that we as a discipline are trying to address is trying to understand better the impact of policies and programs and efforts to address those. There's a huge emphasis at the moment on big data, on big interventions, on a macro perspective. And what we're looking at is well what actually happens are the things that are being put in place to address all of these issues actually achieving the ends they want. And what is the experience of people living in conflict or in poverty or vulnerability and marginalisation and how can we understand their needs better to be able to feed into better social global change. Thanks. Thanks Michael. So it might be interesting to hear a very kind of different discipline and hear from law in terms of how that might contrast. So Lucia over to you. Thank you Hannah. Really interesting challenges for law because we're looking at particularly at human rights law, the challenges around let's say the global pandemic, the issues on borders and but also the legitimisation of institutions, right? So we're looking at how it can be, how we need to reconceptualise international law, human rights law to be able to look forward to an era where we actually addressing issues without the limitations that we currently have with current instrument legal instruments that are not necessarily able to address issues such as global, global challenges in a pandemic, but also issues on the environment. So social and political justice becomes a very important question when it comes to law, but also when it comes to gender issues. So how does it affect women? How does it affect other marginalised groups? And these are the challenges that the lawyers and particularly human rights lawyers are dealing with in the field of law. But it means of course also reconceptualising our understanding of what law actually is, looking at decolonising the ideas around knowledge, productions of law and how we engage with law when we're looking at marginalised communities or regions in when it comes to actual teachings of law and knowledge productions in the academic setting as well. Lovely. Thanks, Lucia. Let's go over to politics. Mira, over to you. Hello. Well, what is an urgent in the world of politics at the moment? I suppose it's the easier question to answer. I suppose we're living in a kind of unprecedented time in the political world, particularly from the last, I would say, 10 years or so. The levels of dissatisfaction with government, both national and global, have greatly expanded ideologies, which we thought we'd said goodbye to in the 20th century appear to be back in enormous and surprising levels of popularity. We have got an order in which technology is radically reshaping our ideas of what it means to be a citizen, who we relate to, what our values are. We've got an unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of corporations, global actors of different kinds, and we have an extraordinary level of violence, both direct violence and what we might think of as indirect or structural violence, the kinds of deaths that are allowed to happen as a result of political neglect. So all of these things are very much live questions in the political world, and so it's a great time to think about politics and to study it, but also to try and redesign and organize our ideas of what we're actually looking at. What does democracy mean under these conditions? What does citizenship mean? What does international order mean when so many things are in tumult? Thanks, Mira. And just because you mentioned inequalities, and I know that's something that's key to the issues that we're interested in economics, I'm going to hand over to Theresa to perhaps build on that. Hi, thank you, Hannah. Yeah, so in economics, I would say, obviously, like all the other subjects, there are many pressing issues, but I think three are quite important at the moment. I would say, as Hannah mentioned, inequality, especially after COVID has increased quite a lot in the UK, for example, the top 10% got 50,000 richer after COVID in Brazil, for example, as well, 1% of the richest people in the country now own 50% of the entire wealth. So I think this is something that in economics, we need to think of how we can address not only from an economics perspective, but how we can also cause and have consequences in other subjects like politics as well. And the other two that I believe that are also pressing in economics is the fact that how the pandemic is going to change some of the economic theories and some of the economic policies that we have learned and that we have followed lately, for instance, in the UK, but not only in the UK, we see inflation rising. We also see a rise of unemployment or precarious employment. So I think this is also something that is quite important in economics and how we can address those issues. And finally, climate change. So we know this is also a very urgent matter and we want to know how climate change can affect policymaking from an economics perspective. Should we still follow should this growth be a green growth? Should we actually stop trying to increase our GDP? So these are also some of the topics that we also cover in the economics department. Thanks, Teresa. And let's perhaps hand over to anthropology with Fabio, please. Thank you, Hannah. Well, yes, anthropology is engaged with all of these questions and maybe in a slightly different way because as an anthropologist what we try to do, we try to immerse ourselves in local life worlds and then try to understand how these larger changes influence them. So the challenge for the discipline really is very much to keep one eye trained on the global movements, on questions of social justice, on questions of climate change, on questions of inequality, with one eye and on the other to sort of understand how these sort of global shifts have a direct influence on how people experience their own life world. And as a medical anthropologist in particular, for example, the question of vaccination hesitancy is something that is really very interesting to think of in terms of the links of politics and culture. And it's something that you really can only get to if you immerse yourself in a particular local world and see these different connections. So this double vision in essence is what is really very challenging. And as Lucia also said, the questions of knowledge production are very important. Epistemology, what does decolonisation mean for the discipline of anthropology, which of course, as you all know, has emerged out of very much out of a colonial situation. Thanks, Javi. What's the food for thought? So last but certainly not least, let's hear from finance and management and Winsuk. Actually, I'd like to say I'm very lucky to be at the last representative to say because, okay, study management is I would like to echo all like our representative there, what they mentioned, the challenges in their department, their study. So study management is about private and then public sector organisation in their economic and political, political, social and cultural involvement, which means the key word in management study at the moment is about the speed. Speed about the change in the technology, speed of the change in political environment, social environment and the key principles. And then our more focal point is, okay, to what extent the speed of the change in economic, social and culture or low their environment in terms of our functional level of doing business, for example, what is the implication for the marketing? What is implication for the human resource management? What is the implication for strategy, financing, accounting? Also, if further we extended to not just simply conventional profit maximisation, maximised organisation, we're more talking about social influence, social contribution, environmental contribution of the management and the firm. So it's a very dynamic area of the study, not just within the firm in terms of the coverage is moving to the society, to the environment, and then we need to consider the big change in technology. So we try to teach a student for the key principle as well as analytical tool, techniques and financial theory and accounting theory as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. So that leads us on nicely to what we thought you would all be interested in as prospective students to our second question, which is really about why so us and why would you want to do this discipline at so as compared to perhaps another UK or other higher education institution. So we're going to turn to the panelists and ask them what makes their discipline particularly different or unique and what would your experience perhaps be at so as that's different for their particular subject. So sorry, I feel like I'm putting you all in the spot because you never know what name I'm going to shout out, but okay let's start with Mira this time if that's okay for politics. Thank you Hannah. So political science has normally taken an approach which has used Western democracies as the model for understanding normal politics and then looked at the rest of the world if it's interested in the rest of the world at all through that lens. Now what we do in the so as politics department in our politics, our international relations and also our PPE program, is we kind of flip that so we understand what the kind of classic texts have said, but then we also say does this actually apply both in the West but mostly in the world outside the West right? Does politics in Africa look like this? Does politics in Asia look like this? What about politics in the Middle East? And actually we look at the theories and ideas and experiences that have come out from those regions that may actually have something very interesting to say about the rest of the world. To give you an example a lot of people in the West I suppose were quite surprised by the experiences of austerity after the financial crash or financial crisis of 2008 and but what we've been going through is actually what a lot of African economies and polities have been going through since the 1970s and particularly the 1980s and so a lot of the impact on the population and on how democracy worked and how the finances were structured we can actually see later happening in the West. So being able to reverse that gaze be less what we call Eurocentric in our approach to thinking about politics is absolutely critical and I would also say that we have a very high concentration of scholars with experience and expertise in looking at what I would call the post-colonial dimensions of politics. So that is how it affects our theories, how it affects our values and where we can see these kind of contemporary practices today around the world so that's I would say key things. Thank you Mira and and in fact once again I'm going to come back to you because you were sort of touching upon ways in which things are different within finance and management so I'll let you carry on and expand a bit on that. Okay so I would like to echo the Mira's point yes we are so as in overall as you know we are highly globalised also we are empathised on something very niche it's not touched by so-called mainstream but we put that value on it at the same time we don't ignore like the key mainstream as well so it means so as in our department would like to say our department basically cover all key theory and principle and then key discipline or management what provided by all other UK universities in the world. However what makes so as in school of finance or management differentiated from others is we are very globalised in terms of our curriculum our teaching staff so for example in our undergraduate program students are given the opportunity to choose various language options including Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Arab language as a part of your elective module also I would like to say SOAS is one of the only university as I know based on my knowledge in Europe or even in the world we provide the taste of the regional focus management and business so part of your curriculum degree our department provides for example okay finance in Japan management in Japan finance in China finance and Middle East in North Africa management in China management in Japan management in North America I'm sorry North Africa and the Middle East so you can have a sort of the opportunity to apply your knowledge in a key discipline or management into the different kinds of the region which provide different political culture customer social environment so I would like to say this is one of the major key strengths in our department yep thank you oh sorry can I just add one more our BSc finance and accounting and finance degree upon your graduation you are going to get a six exemption from the ACCA and the sixth exemption for the CMA both are the key chartered association of accounting association so you can have an easy transfer to as a qualified account on F upon your graduation from our BSc finance and accounting and finance degree thank you lovely thank you Unsook and I should say just briefly if you have got questions if they're particular panelists or there's something pressing perhaps for now what you could do is put them into the chat and we'll come back to them at the end and there'll also be a chance for you to raise your hand and ask a question if you prefer to do it that way at the end and let's after Unsook's intervention perhaps go to Theresa to just hear from economics and hear how that might differ from the finance and management side a little bit too so Theresa over to you yes thank you I would agree with my colleagues that in economics we also see for example different theories and what we would see in other universities so for example if we want to explain the effects of covid for instance we are not going to look only at those theories that we would see for example in the economist on the financial times we also see other views from it so from a Keynesian perspective from a Marxist perspective and also from economic theories from developing countries so I'm from Brazil from Latin America we also learned some of those those theories from what we call the structuralists so I would say this is one key difference from our department at SOAS from other departments economics in the UK I would also say that our department does look have has a global outlook on how policies for instance in the UK and in Europe also have an effect in developing countries so for example if the central bank raises interest rates here in the UK what is going to happen for example with Nigeria so I would say that this is also something that makes us a bit different instead of just focusing very strictly on where we are we also have this global outlook we also have as I would say maybe in finance we do in our department have the we give you the tools to do this analysis yourselves and this is I think very important because for the job market it's always great to have some programming skills know how to do how to handle Excel for example and over our modules we do cover statistical programs and we do those analysis with real world data to see how if actually the data corresponds to the economic theories as well and finally I think that one of the key differences that you can also join the department of economics even if you don't have an A levels in maths but still get BSC in core economics so this is a difference of our department you need to take some further maths and statistics but it would be possible for you to actually have the Bachelor of Science thanks thank you Teresa and let's hand over to Mike Jennings for Development Studies thanks Hannah just to quickly follow up on something that unsuk said that there is no institution like SOAS in the world at all for anything so whatever subject you're coming to study you're going to have a uniquely SOAS experience and we're a small institution so whatever subject you're studying you'll also probably be taking modules from other departments as well in terms of our department I think there are two main things that mark us out or mark our program out as different from the way you'd study global development in other institutions the first is context like SOAS as an institution was founded upon the idea that context and place really matter and that it's vital to understand that and we in the department as with everyone here and all the other departments across SOAS have that at the heart of their curriculum have that at the heart of all their teaching as well as their research so that marks out what we do we don't just teach about the general issues migration, NGOs, aid, conflict we think about how it differs what difference place makes not just geographical place but also specific communities groups within those communities so all the staff have not just a research focus and a teaching focus on the thematic issues but we also apply that in our research and our teaching to the countries and regions across Africa Middle East Asia and also Latin America we also have several staff who work on that the second thing is that we're one of the few undergraduate programs that is based in a specific development studies department rather than being a program in let's say a politics department or an economics department geography anthropology and what that means is that we're bringing to so development studies is by definition almost is a multidisciplinary or an interdisciplinary degree program so in our department we have people who are anthropologists we have people from politics and international relations we have engineers I'm a historian by background so our programs not only look at specific regional contexts and differences but they apply different disciplinary focus foci to them to ask looking at the same problem but through different lenses and asking different questions of it to really understand it and so I think both of those things combined with the distinctiveness that is so as itself make our program very different from the kinds of programs that will be offered in other institutions thank you Mike and let's hand over to Law and Lucie and we'll let Fabio go last if that's okay Fabio thank you and I think my comments most of them have already raised why so it's so unique for you to study at SOAS and in law it's not that much different we do give you the let's say the standard law degree that you would get added any other university in the UK but the added bonuses that you get to look at different parts of the world are not necessarily necessarily included in other programs we have modules that look particularly at let's say the legal systems of Asia and Africa which is completely unique this is a module that is not offered at any other university so you're not only looking at law from a very Eurocentric western perspective but you're also actually looking at how law is understood and applied in different parts of the world and in that context also looking at how colonialism has had an influence of how we view law and what we consider law so we ask questions around what for example how Islamic law has had an influence through colonialism what the applicability is in different parts of the world but can it also actually be considered law is religious law is something that we can look or put in part with western ideas of let's say the western's ideas of law but also in the same way looking at the comparison in within the African context looking at a customary law is a law can it be considered law if it's not written law what are the ideas around colonial interference during the colonial period and what has it done to the understanding of how customary law for example is applied and what are the considerations when we look at the international influence on law and let's say decolonization so you get a really good view of not only how law interacts with society because as I think as Fabio mentioned we look at law not only from a perspective of what is legitimate or not but also how does law actually influence society and how the society influence how laws are created or even abide by even in this context where we say the pandemic and institutions and the credibility behind institutions are very much also linked with this idea of law and also linked with the idea of politics so they're all interconnected and within so as you get a chance to interact with those with those modules not even just within the context of let's say legal systems of Asia and Africa or any other South Asian modules that we have but also let's say when we look at EU law what is the implication of legislation that is presented or created in the EU that has an influence in Africa or in Asia so what are the implications behind that and that is the unique thing that you wouldn't get if any other institution accepts so as so it's an amazing opportunity if you study law and so thank you. Thanks Lucia, over to you Fabio. Thank you Hannah, I mean it sounds all very exciting I would love to study with all of you it's also it's a very interesting and exciting moment to study anthropology at SOAS because we've just introduced we're introducing this coming year a new curriculum that came out of sort of four years of very intense discussions within the department about what is the canon of anthropology is it you know do we have to start with Evans Pritchard still who is relevant and who isn't relevant and maybe to as Mira has said to flip things around a bit our department has a very high concentration on experts we cover East Africa, West Africa, Japan, China, the Middle East and South Asia in our ethnography courses so we have a strong regional expertise but at the same time we're trying in this sort of reformulation of the discipline we're trying to think of the regions in a flipped way we try to think about global issues from regional perspectives rather than to think oh there's the default western position and then there's the different regions that have different ways of doing things so try to use the regional as a lens as a focus and then to see how this compares and so we've introduced we're introducing this year a range of new courses that are sort of less focused on the history of anthropology but really what does it mean to study at university this course called Minded University is specific for first-year students to really think to make them reflect about what do you want out of this degree what what is your goal when you come to study at university we've also introduced a series of more practice-based courses like how to change things which is all about cooperation between NGOs between parliamentary groups and to think about how can you influence the corridors of power as a social scientist at the same time we also notice that many students really want to study something very specific that we may not offer as a curriculum so we've also introduced a new individual module that's called elective reading that you do with just one supervisor individually and you cover up with your own syllabus so to give students really the opportunity to follow their particular interest to follow the interest that they may have developed over the first one or two years of studying with us so yes it's a very exciting time to come to us and to study here thank you thanks Fabia and okay I think what what's important to be aware of is that this is also something that we know that employers tell us they really appreciate in our students the global perspective the critical the ability to kind of think critically about things so I think across from all the panelists there's a reflection of that in what we do here at SOAS and and we all know that that's something that employers tell us again and again they appreciate in our graduates so on that note we thought it might be useful to hear what many of our graduates go on to do and so I think it might be a chance for panelists to also reflect on what they might have changed so I was good to hear from Fabio around you know what's what's changed in terms of the teaching delivery the assessment we I know we all work closely with our students around what we want to do differently in our degree programs so feel free to maybe bring that in as we've got a little bit of time as well and give us a sense of what your students go on to do where do they work UK internationally what sorts of institutions and let's start with Bunsuk and finance and management please sorry okay so as Hannah said also as Michael emphasized any any department in social science as SOAS we our student graduate as a so-called SOASian okay we have a very warm heart we graduated whatever you studied so this very unique point is highly recognized related to our management and financial study by our employer so believe or not our most of our SOAS graduates they're currently working at like for example in in financial sector in city of major big consulting firms such as KPMG Deloitte Deloitte or Honestor Young such as that company and then some of the students they're running their own business some students they're doing their PhD undergraduate like other other master degree so so the various types of the organization our graduates working on it but especially we particularly working on like human resource management side marketing side and finance accounting and then once they build up their career eventually many students work in the senior position for organizing entire strategy and development strategy within their organization if you want to see the details of our students profile one good example is in google type my name and then link with my linkin and most of my linkin connections our our graduate you can see their job where they're working so you can find I'm not lying now yeah thank you thank you and I think that's probably reflected across the board that many of us keep in touch with our students after they leave us so us isn't a huge institution so I'm sure that's the case for many of us and that's one of the lovely things the kind of intimacy around the community that we create and let me go to Mike Jennings next thanks I think what's interesting about development studies is that we don't have a single or a narrow range of pathways that our graduates go on to do I think the way students see our programs the way we see our programs is that we know our students want to make a difference in the world but they want to find the place where they know they can make that best good difference and our pro our programs and actually the wider support within so it's worth bearing in mind we have a really good careers service who understand the so our students and what they want to do so our task is to help you find that place where you can make a difference so our students end up in all kinds of different really interesting places doing really amazing things and it's also worth bearing in mind that a whole range of employers really like so our students generally but development studies students given that that's who I'm here representing because they have a deep in this case social science training and they know the right questions to ask they don't come in and just with their training carry on doing things as they've always been done for the past decade or more they know when things are working and how to see whether things are working and to make differences to make changes that can improve things they know the questions to ask they know how to get the data they need to provide the answers and then what needs to be done so they're incredibly critically engaged and analytical and employers love that and that means that you can find development studies graduates and a whole range of places of course many do go on to work in the global development or related sector so they go and work for NGOs like Oxfam Action Aid Save the Children we have students who've gone on to work for human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International we have students who go on to work for the big donors like DFID as was now FCBO JICA in Japan ADF in France and so on we also have in fact one of our former students is now the executive director at Care International one of the major international NGOs we have students who go on to work with refugees either working directly with refugees or doing research on refugee and migration or working with advocacy and policy organizations and others have moved I suppose out of or aren't necessarily engaged directly in global development but are working in civil services are working as journalists some have actually gone on to work in kind of private banking and finance sectors and so on so it's a huge range and many go on to actually do further studies as well masters and then also quite a high proportion go on eventually to do a PhD so it's a huge range and I think it's about the skills that you gain from global global development studies can of course be used on our relevant to a career within that sector but actually the skills are applicable across a whole range of sectors and types of employment and it's those skills that are really important and it's those skills that mean our graduates end up in such amazing and interesting places I'm quite envious actually of the things that they go on to do thanks Mike and I think that's particularly important in the current moment where things are so uncertain and to have that range of skills is is so crucial and let's go to Fabio next in anthropology Thank you I can only concur with what Mike has just said I mean it's this really a broad range of different things that people go to do on the website for anthropology it actually says on top says working for the New York Times that was one student who became a journalist who eventually worked as a well or was commissioned by the New York Times to write several pieces and dance therapist which was the sort of the other end of the spectrum but again I don't want to give the impression that this is a skill that you directly learn here at SOAS although we do our fair share of dancing as well it's many anthropology graduates go to work for NGOs go into journalism into education all over the world work for civil service civil society organizations and it's really about the skills as Mike has said and it's really the skill is to ask the right question and that often you know is something that retrospectively seems to be a very obvious thing but really if you're doing your own research you realize that it's that is the core critical skill to have an awareness of what is at stake not just out of your personal you know or if what is in your personal interest but really to work to better an organization as you work for it I think this is something that SOASians are deeply committed to thank you thanks Fabio and lovely let's hand over to Mira thank you my answer will be short because it's very similar to Mike and Fabio in terms of what politics graduates go on to do you get a similar range of skills you get a similar range of career pathways particularly in the world of development journalism politics a number of our graduates have gone on to work in the civil service and actually we had a very interesting internship scheme recently where DEFRA came to us and they said actually we'd like some SOAS politics students to come and do internships with us because we're not a very diverse department and you seem to have that stuff nailed so they went along and that was a very interesting encounter I think for both parties so we do have students who graduate who are real kind of change makers who see things differently and who are able to kind of convey that in their different fields in terms of the skills that we build through the program we have research methods training in both qualitative and quantitative aspects available and that's good for going into even careers that require research but don't seem like research heavy skills so risk analysis and consultancy and other kinds of things like that we are building in more and more assessments that allow you for example to write a policy brief or a web scene or something like that in order to convey information in a different variety of formats alongside you know the traditional essays presentations and so on so what we hope that a SOAS graduate will come out with the politics and international relations or politics philosophy and economics graduate will come out with is a very good understanding of how power operates and how institutions operate and how these things circulate in the world but also a really good set of skills and awarenesses about how one can make change how one can apply this knowledge in the service of of the thing that one wants to see in the world and I think that's come through very very well I think it's also worth saying that internationally SOAS's reputation is really good it's actually weirdly stronger internationally than it is in the UK in the UK it seems to be a relatively smaller institution but in within particular circles within global development within politics in the policy world SOAS is very highly regarded and I think that helps a lot lovely thank you and I am keeping an eye on the questions I know there've been a couple around open options some things just come in around study abroad opportunities so we'll come back to those and put our hand over to Lucia and then we'll come to Theresa at the end thank you again also I don't have much to add because most of my colleagues have already highlighted this as someone who does an undergraduate module of law at SOAS you would have the opportunity to work at many different organizations from the United Nations to Parliament to working with maybe one of our alumni who are also very much still connected with SOAS we have David Lambie of course one of our most famous alumni so there are many ways that you can get into working with a law degree not necessarily just an LPC not necessarily just becoming a solicitor there are many different things that you can do with a law degree and we see students that have gone on to different parts of the world as well so students don't necessarily stay in the UK or in Europe they go on to actual practicing what they have studied in Asia in Africa and wanting to bring that knowledge back we also see a lot of students continuing on to do a master's degree for example so it's because we have specialized programs that look at for example law and gender which is one of the programs that I'm responsible for but also doing a PhD so examining and looking and interrogating how law is applicable in many different ways and how we challenge the law and our understanding of the law and I think the beautiful thing about studying law and not necessarily becoming a solicitor becoming a lawyer also means that you get to taste a little bit of everything you get to taste of what it means to write let's say a policy degree for what it means to be a journalist what it means to do research for an NGO we got students who went on to work for Amnesty International Human Rights Watch Greenpeace etc so there's a variety of things that you can do with a law degree and as someone that has studied at SOAS as well I'm a lecturer at SOAS now but I started my SOAS experience as a student and it's always been an experience of evolving wanting to do more within the institution but also always being able to learn more about the rest of the world so that's one of the benefits of actually studying at SOAS as well and where you end up going with that degree. Thanks Lucia. Teresa last but not least. Thanks Hannah so we in economics we have a quite diverse background not only in terms of social economic diversity but also in terms of nationalities so we do have different students that as other colleagues said they have different interests as well so sometimes our students might end up working in finance so we do have some students that have that are working now on HSBC or at Lloyds or city group we also have other students that end up working in international organizations for example the World Bank the United Nations or OACD those are usually abroad so we also have a lot of students who end up going to Washington DC, New York or Paris as well to work after they graduate. We do have some students that work obviously here in the UK as well especially in government but also in other kinds of private institutions so we have students for example sorry I wrote it down here somewhere I forgot so they work in the Department for International Trade here in the UK so this is one of what where in the government they could end up working as a SOAS graduate in economics we also have some others that just go to work for governments in other countries so we also have students they go for example to work in South Africa and I wanted to highlight that more than 90% of our students our undergrad students after they finish their degree they are already either doing further studies so they might be doing a master's degree either at SOAS or other university or even abroad or they are already full-time employment so they are already working full-time and I think that what's interesting as well is that SOAS has a very strong network with alumni as other colleagues also put forward and we have something that is called SOAS Connect which is kind of like an old school Facebook where you can connect with students it's kind of like a SOAS LinkedIn where you can see where people are working what they are doing now you can connect to them you can ask for tips on how to get a job there and as other colleagues also said this is very I think being a SOAS graduate in economics also shows that you've learned you know different theories you have critical thinking to kind of understand how theories work in different contexts and why they differ from UK Europe and the rest of the world and we also provide this hard technical skills as well so students also end up learning software to do statistical analysis so some of them for instance go to work as data analysts for Bloomberg and other groups in finance or in banking for instance so yeah thanks. Thank you very much I think we've heard from everyone on all three questions unless I'm mistaken. Yes just I wanted to highlight something that you mentioned around SOAS Connect because and I think it was Michael who mentioned it as well we have a really good program with the SOAS Career Service with the BAE mentoring scheme that puts students in touch with BAE alumni who are based in different parts of the world to get specific mentorship in the area of research or in the area of field that you want to work in after graduating so not only do we have SOAS Connect we have actual programs in place to put you in touch with alumni who have already gone into working in the fields that you may be interested in so that's also one unique thing that SOAS has to offer. I also forgot to mention something that we are now in the Department of Economics also launching an internship program so we're also going to put students in touch already when they are doing their degree in touch with other firms like obviously they will be in London because it will be during the term but that means that you can also get some work experience before you leave university as well which is also quite important before you actually start looking for full-time jobs after you graduate. Thanks Teresa. Okay so we have a couple of questions that I think maybe we can all go around and speak to. One was around open options which I think Michael was already answered in the chat to say that there are opportunities for various open options throughout your degrees with any department but it does depend on the particular degree so I know someone was asking about doing the PPE degree that Mira's mentioned a couple of times where it is a bit more tricky to take open options because you've got to cover the three disciplines within those three years so it does depend on the particular degree you're doing and then there was one around study abroad options and I know that perhaps if you've attended one of the other talks on languages then with the language degrees there's a much more integrated program around studying abroad. It's a bit more ad hoc so if you have anything like that then do raise it I'll just briefly mention that I know for economics we have an opportunity to study in Singapore through a summer score that you can attend between the second and final year of your degree and that counts as part of your overall degree so it's a condensed module that you take and it counts towards but others might have things to add on that while I catch up on the questions. Does anyone want to add anything on study abroad options or perhaps additional modules they want to mention that are very exciting? I'll just quickly jump in there and so we don't have a study abroad module as such but one of the things that students can take in their final year is what we call an independent study project which every other university would call a dissertation it's one of the things that makes us unique and as part of that many students in the past have used either summer or Christmas vacations to go and get data from abroad and study abroad obviously for the past couple of years that hasn't been possible but that normally is an opportunity for people to go and do that but as with all departments you know we're constantly looking at how we can bring in more actual formal study abroad options as part of degree programs. Thank you can I just answer to Joseph mentioned you ask if it's just East Asia you study abroad and within law but no you can get different options to where you end up with the study abroad depending on the program that you choose so depending on the LOB program that you choose you get different options to study abroad so not just East Asia you do get opportunities to make a selection of course we have to see what fits within the chosen program but there are many different options in that. Thank you Lucia and I know there was a question about wanting to do combined degrees and are they split 50-50 for combined degrees so I guess they tend to be and as Mira has said you can kind of decide in your very final year where you want the waiting to lie more so that you end up with the first discipline in your degree title being the one in which you've taken more modules in than the second. I think in terms of three-way degrees such as the PPE degree the Politics Philosophy and Economics they're usually sort of specifically designed programs that already exist so you wouldn't be able to take I can't remember what it was it Korean with international relations and social anthropology that probably wouldn't be an option that would work unless that degree specifically exists which I don't think it does but in terms of the waiting you can choose and you usually do still have the chance to do a little bit of an open option perhaps one module per year that you can take in another department but I can see that Fabio probably is going to correct me so I'm going to go to you Fabio. Not at all I just wanted to say because we get a lot of these questions when you do a joint degrees as Mira said then you have you have to do the core modules which reduces your choice overall and so we sometimes have a student in their second year who say well actually I don't have the freedom to choose anything at all so sometimes it makes more sense to do a single honours which still means you can take courses in other departments as open options so it's very important to talk to your admissions tutor you know to get a good sense of what the right thing for you to do is. I think that's very wise and you'll be given an academic advisor as well when you arrive at SOAS and that's someone that holds on to your whole academic journey and you'll be having regular conversations with them around what decisions you're making for your module choices etc there was a question around how we're coping with COVID so I don't know whether someone wants to take that. Can I just say something on joint degrees I think also something that is quite interested about SOAS is that you can also take a second language as part of your degree and in SOAS as far as I'm concerned we have a lot of languages that are not available at other universities such as those from African and Asian countries so often you see European languages available so you can learn French German Spanish and so on but at SOAS you can also learn some other different languages so I for instance I take Swahili in the evenings but you can also do this as part of your degree you can learn Yoruba you can learn Swahili you can learn many other things so I think this is also something that SOAS can bring different. Thanks Teresa so whilst people are maybe wanting to think about COVID and the impact on us because we've got a couple of minutes left I also thought it might be worth all of us putting in the name or sorry the email address of our undergrad program convener in case people have follow-up questions if it's you then put your email and maybe just next to it write what subject it's for just in case people want to follow up and maybe don't want to raise their hand right now or ask a question in the chat I think that would be useful I'll put angle losses into either don't worry and does anyone want to tackle COVID in terms of how we're managing Mira. My light just fell off my computer so that's how I'm coping with COVID right now so COVID I mean we've really tried I would say to maximize access for everybody students have a really wide range of needs obviously some are really keen to get back on campus and we've tried to put as much as we can on campus others are actually much better off studying remotely because of medical reasons or because their travel situations or because of family reasons and we've tried as much as we can to offer both online and in-person options where that's a possibility we've recorded a lot of the stuff so that if you have missed it in one or other format you can catch up with it and so this is quite a small campus and a number of our rooms are quite small so that's something that we have to negotiate I mean that's great because we do a lot of small group teaching but for pandemic city center reasons that's not amazing so we'll continue I mean everybody has learned a lot of new skills about online platforms and teaching over the last year or so and I'm sure we'll continue to evolve this as the situation continues to unfold. Finally getting there with muting and unmuting thanks Mira I think that does sum it up quite nicely um across the board does anyone have any final words they want to add or if I've missed a question tell me that I've missed a question and someone can take it now any can I just maybe I'll just encourage everyone look whatever program you're planning on studying please do go and have a look at the website please have a look at the structure to see exactly what modules you'd be taking and what's available to you and if you have any questions get in touch with I mean obviously we put names of people you can get in touch with uh really you can get in touch with anyone at size we'll we'll they'll send you to the right place as well and if you want to speak to a student um to get their experience we can of course arrange that through the admissions department um so if you it's a really important decision you have to pick the place that's right for you we hope obviously so as is that place for you um but do ask as many questions as you want to remember there is no question that no one else wants to know the answer to no there's no such thing as a silly question it doesn't you know any question you want to ask someone else will also want to know the answer to it as well so please do get in touch but you know good luck with whatever decision you take and wherever you end up absolutely thank you Mike um for that and that really uh summarizes things quite nicely and I think the last thing to say is we're sorry that we're not seeing you in person and we hope that you do find the opportunity to come on to campus soon and there's nothing quite like the SOAS campus so um please do come and visit us when the chance arises and we hope to see you in COVID free times uh in September um and do follow up over email if you have anything else but I think that just leaves me to thank everyone thank you to the panelists for making a Saturday available and thank you to all of you for coming on a Saturday and wish you a nice weekend thank you good luck thank you bye