 Hello, my name is William Hetherington and I'm head of the if sales department at SOAS University of London. And this talk is really focusing on our international pre undergraduate foundation program, which we've been running for many years and and so I just like to take you through the structure of my presentation. So, first of all, I'm, I would just want to tell you a little bit about the sales department and, and the, the different functions that we have within the university. And then I'd like to talk a little bit and identify some of the strengths of our foundation program or certainly what I see is the strengths of our foundation program. And then moving on more to the structure or and content of the program itself, both the academic English and the academic modules, then look a little bit at the workload. How, how students will structure their week in terms of studying on the program and, and the kind of assessment that they have to do. Finally, look because it's a foundation program and bridging from high school generally to undergraduate study we'll look at the data about how our students have progressed over the last year from the foundation program to a number of universities and the kind of undergraduate programs that they're attending. So we'll start just walking a little bit about the sales department. We run a number of different courses and programs relating to English language, academic study skills and academic study as well, particularly for students who are preparing for degree level study at SOAS or what at other universities. So we run the ICC International Foundation program that I'm telling you about today. We also run a pre masters program for students who are preparing for postgraduate study. We run a predominantly academic English course for exchange students who are coming from different countries to study on campus at SOAS. We run pre-sessional and in-sessional academic English and study skills training as well. I think in terms of all of those different courses are our goals are the same. You know, we're trying to provide students with an academic study experience. So although we specialize in academic English, many of our programs involve students taking part in academic study, mainly around arts and humanities and social sciences, which really fits in with the subject range of SOAS generally. We're trying to develop students' academic English, but we're also trying to develop students' academic study skills and I think this is a very important area for a lot of students. The experience that students have in their own academic culture may be quite different to how they are expected to participate in a UK academic culture. And so developing the right skills that enable students to maximize the progress and the performance that they can achieve is a key part of what we're trying to do. We have subject specialist teachers as well as academic English teachers. So we try and integrate the two parts of the student study. So while students are participating in academic study in the study of an academic subject, they have support from a subject specialist academic English teacher as well. And we're also trying to give students a whole, a complete campus experience. So all of the study of our foundation program is on campus. Students are taught by members of staff from SOAS rather than from a private provider, for example. Students have access to all of the facilities that any other SOAS student has. And so part of the preparation for a student is really to immerse themselves in a different kind of academic culture, which they can only really achieve through studying on campus. So in terms of the strengths of the ICC foundation program, I think there are quite a few of them really. First of all, it's one of the most established foundation programs in the UK and has been running for over 30 years or almost 35 years. And so we have staff and experience that allows us to really adapt to a range of different student profiles and student experiences. And I think also because the program is so well established, we're also very well recognized around the UK. And so just as an example, so last year when our foundation students applied through UCAS, they received offers from 13 of the top 20 universities in the UK. So our students, even though they're studying on the SOAS program and maybe majority of them may be attending to go to SOAS, they still have the opportunity of progressing elsewhere. And those universities have a clear idea of the level of performance that our students can achieve and the quality of our students. We provide our students with a range of different subjects that they can study. Quite a lot of other foundation programs tend to channel students into a particular pathway. And what we try and do is provide a range of subjects and allow students to choose which subjects they feel would be most suitable for them as preparation, which subjects they would feel most confident studying, almost motivated by. And these tend to be again around arts and humanities, social science and business management and some finance as well. But I'll talk about that in more detail a little bit later. Continuing on with the strengths, we have a very experienced teaching staff in our department. The vast majority of the teachers have been teaching in our department for at least 10 years. Some, like myself, have been in the department for near 20 years and some have been there for 30 years. So we have a staff that have a very good understanding of and a good sensitivity towards the kinds of experiences, the kinds of challenges that international students have when they're having to make that transition from their previous educational culture to a new one, studying in a new language, studying new subjects. And so that experience that our staff has is invaluable really in helping students and supporting students in their journey through the foundation year. As I said before, we try to provide a complete campus experience. All of our teaching is done on campus. In fact, our students are back on campus for term two this year. There's been a mixture of online and on campus teaching in the first term, but now we are back to complete on campus teaching. And so that gives students the opportunity really to experience a UK university campus atmosphere and to really take advantage of the resources that are available to them including the world famous world leading library, one of five national libraries within the UK. Getting involved in the student union using resources like student support services as well. So, and also really to meet and interact with other like minded students on campus and the, and the campus at SOAS is very international 50% of students are from other countries other than the UK. The students are very passionate about what they're studying, and it really creates a very exciting and dynamic atmosphere within the campus, and we want our students to feel part of that. And finally, of course, it's on, it's located, the campus is located in Central London, and that gives students the opportunity to make the most of all of the sites and entertainment and interest and history around Central London. And really anywhere in Central London is from the Russell Square campus in Bloomsbury, and we are literally a couple of hundred meters away from the British Museum, for example. So there's a, there's a, there's a whole range of different things that students can experience outside of the campus as well. And to just focus a bit on the general structure of the program. So our students will take four modules, and those are full modules so they take those four modules for the whole year for the whole academic year, which runs from September through to June. And, and students then get their transcripts and they complete the course in July in preparation to start their undergraduate studies the following September. Four modules, there are two compulsory modules which obviously students are required to take one is an academic English module, and the other is a kind of foundation academic module called understanding the modern world. And then students also take two other modules out of a range of social science and arts and humanities subjects. They can choose to, there are some restrictions on choice, but but generally speaking students have quite a range of subjects that they can choose from everything from business economics, through politics development studies law. And then into media, world history, world art and literature. So there's so some students might take two very similar subjects some students might take actually take quite different subjects in order to maybe increase the range of skills that they develop while they're studying and increase the range of knowledge that they have. But that's very much up to the student to decide and very much up to what motivates the student most. So just looking a little bit more in depth modules, the academic English module is really focusing both on writing literacy and oracy and it we have two different levels depending on the level of English that the student has when they enter the program. And we are, and really the the the academic English modules focuses just as much on what we might call academic discourse. So how students are expected to use their English in an academic context how they are expected to present their ideas in writing in a presentation or in interactive discussion. And it's also focusing on critical thinking. So, trying to encourage students to get beyond just describing what other people have written describing facts and really engaging in a more evaluative way with the concepts ideas theories that they are covering so they can start to develop their own ideas and these additional aspects to the academic English module are very very important in terms of students then being able to apply that to their academic modules. And also the compulsory academic module understanding the modern world. This is a very broad ranging module really trying to get students to think about how we have got to where we are now as a, both in terms of smaller societies but as a global society, really. And so it takes in politics, economics, social issues, history, and really give students the chance to join up different ideas and different concepts to get a much better understanding of the historical development of societies around the world. And how globalization in particular and industrialization and modernization has changed and affected these societies and gives students a chance to think about what's what might be coming in the future as well. And a lot of what they're studying in this subject will then relate to their or connect with the other more specialist subjects they're studying. In terms of the academic subjects we have. They are generally kind of introductory level, I mean they we don't require students to have had any experience in studying those subjects before. It's always important the students have a sense of what they are going to study so we make sure that students are provided with a lot of information about these modules. They have to make a choice. You don't make a choice of the modules you're studying when you apply, you apply for the program itself, and then later on, nearer to the staff program, we then provide students with information access to reading material that they can use in order to make the best choice for themselves. So, as I said before, we are going through business studies and economics, economics and politics as well, and these are very closely related development studies is a very central subject to so as as an institution. You know so as is focusing quite don't really at degree level on developing regions and the development process. So, this is a very important subject within so as generally the law and international society, rather than a kind of English law English common law focus we're trying to give an international focus so students can think think more generally about legal concepts and how they might be applied internationally and within particular regions as well. Media and communications, again is quite a multi disciplinary subject, really trying to get students to think carefully about how media is having an increasingly significant effect on how society shaped how people gain knowledge, how people interact with each other, like me now. This is all mediated. And so actually media has become a really important subject for students to have some awareness of. World History and World Art and Literature are the two kind of real real pure arts and humanities subjects. World History is trying to again to get students to think. I think a bit more about the, the kinds of concepts, ideologies, philosophies that have rather than purely looking at historical events, but looking at how looking historically at how different ideas have affected historical developments and have affected societies and regions as well. And it really runs from the 15th century right up to present day. And you take, as I say it takes a global look so it's trying to show how different areas of the globe have have had varying levels of significance globally at different times in history, rather than there is a tendency within universities in the UK to take a rather kind of Western centric view of history, where whereas actually, you know, Europe in certain, certain times in history has been relatively insignificant compared to other regions of the world in terms of global power. So it's quite important for students to kind of get a sense of the subjectivity of history as well how history is an interpretation of evidence. It's not always fact, and it's not always objective. We have to look at evidence and interpret that to develop our own sense of a historical development. Finally, world art and literature. These are taught separately in that we have a world literature term and then a world art term, but we are also trying to look at interconnections between the two, particularly in terms of particular movements and how they might have an effective artistic expression in both of those subject areas, but also, and as importantly, we're looking at the relationship between art and social and political issues around the world as well. So that kind of gives you a sense of what you might be studying. If you if if any of you want more information, or you're not sure about particular modules you can always get in contact with me and I can provide you with with more information about those. So in terms of the working week, the studying week. As I said before, there are two elective academic modules the academic English. There is understanding modern world and these tend to follow out certainly the academic most tend to follow a similar pattern in the students will have a lecture for each of those modules week and they will have a seminar, a small group seminar and a real discussion with the lecturer, and between those they will have a lecture review with a subject specific English teacher. So, students will be following the academic modules with an English teacher who can support them through their discussion within that module, both in terms of helping them understand or get a better understanding of the ideas and concepts that they are they are addressing, but also looking at how they are then expected to convey information or express their own ideas in a way that's suitable for that particular discipline. So if you're studying development studies compared to say, world art, you're going to have to express your ideas in quite distinct ways, and the kind of evidence that you might be required to use to support the ideas that you are presenting as well. So it focuses on on that but so students will get as much support as they will get input from the lecturers themselves. The academic English module is really a two hour writing class a week and a one hour or a C class which focuses predominantly on discussion skills in the first term and presentation skills in the second term. So a lot of one to one support available to students, both in terms of interaction with their lecturers, particularly around the deadlines for submission of work where they can arrange a one to one meeting with their lecturer before they submit and then after they submit in order to get face to face feedback from their lecturers. So a lot of one to one support from their academic English support teachers and the academic English module teachers as well. There is one to one support from personal tutors what we call personal tutors or sometimes that in the school they're called academic advisors, and we also provide one to one support for UCAS applications as well. So at the moment of the last of our students are submitting their applications to be sent and submitted later this month. And they will be applying both to so as and they may well be applying to other universities as well. So it's important that students get support with the writing of personal statements. Guidance on how to research different programs, maybe guidance on the difference but difference in approach between different universities as well. In terms of assessment, there are with the academic modules there are two term Lee assignments so one assignment each term so they do two assignments and then there are written exams at the end of the year. So for academic English students develop a portfolio of work, and they also have an exam and the written exam at the end of the year. So it's a combination of coursework during the year and then exams and the split in terms of the mark is really 5050. So each of the modules 50% of the mark is accounted for by the coursework and 50% is accounted for by the final exams. Okay, so now let's look at progression before we finish. So, it's very important that our students have the opportunity to progress to so as or to other universities if they choose to do that so in terms of the data. So last year, our students received offers from 25 different universities as I said they received offers from 13 top 20 universities but 25 UK universities all together. Some students also actually apply to universities abroad in America or maybe Hong Kong or other universities in mainland Europe. And of in the end, the students last year have progressed in September, October to 13 different universities, and about 80% stayed within the University of London so that's either staying and progressing to so as itself, or we had students to London from economics, King's College, Queen Mary University of London, City University and Goldsmiths. And then further afield we had students progressing to Bath University, Bristol Lancaster University of the Arts, London, Warwick, Westminster and York and and really they're normally choosing universities on the basis of the strength of the universities in particular areas in particular subject areas so to give you a sense of the subjects that students went on to study. Here we have the SOAS destinations for our students last year where they are studying this year. As you see it's ranging from economics, in terms of social sciences, economics, management, law, politics, and then in terms of arts and humanities we have social anthropology, world philosophies, languages and cultures, and history of art. And also international relations so within the politics department students can study politics or international relations or, as you can see, both. And you will see that a number of students are taking combined on the subjects and because SOAS takes quite an interdisciplinary approach to study the combination so combined honors degrees in two different subjects is quite common. And you can also see some students are taking languages so students taking Japanese there and is there any more. There's a BA Languages and Cultures and World Philosophies so that's more that allows students to study a wider range of languages as well. And then there's a field just to give you a sense of where students have gone further afield. Again, social science, accounting and finance management, both in terms of general management but also as you see University of the Arts is fashion management. There's a lot of students going on to politics, international relations, social science kinds of subject areas, and, and also media, particularly kind of digital culture is becoming much more popular as well. And as you can see, a lot of the time they are focusing on what is regarded as strong subjects in particular universities so at, for example, yeah, I mean at Lancaster University Accounting and Finance is very strong. Obviously politics at the LSE is, is one of their main subjects. Warwick, studying management at Warwick. So it's, in fact, this is unusual because normally students will go to Goldsmiths to do media related subjects but here we've got management and entrepreneurship and Goldsmiths is quite practical in that way. So as you can see there's a range of options open to students in terms of progression to graduate study. In terms of progression to SOAS, ICC students are guaranteed conditional offers for any of the subjects that they apply for at SOAS, provided that they meet the January deadline, that initial UCAS deadline, and we, we try and direct students as far as possible to hit the deadline. And I think every single student has done that so far. And as I said before we do provide one to one and kind of group guidance through the UCAS process as well. In terms of what students need to achieve, they will normally have to hit around about merit level to be able to go to one of the programs at SOAS. So it's really subject specific, it's more looking at the overall score so has the student been able to show an overall performance that will give the university confidence that they're going to be able to progress and make good progress at undergraduate level as well. And finally just looking at scholarships and discounts and do have a small number of international foundation ambassador scholarships and these are really for students who want to get involved in representing student body in presenting to prospective students, the student experience at SOAS. And so there is scholarship of £3,000 this year on so next year there are three scholarships of £3,000. And for that students are expected to spend one or two hours a week working on trying to help students help existing students integrated into the student body but also providing different parts of the student experience to prospective students through media, through blogs, through seminars and things like that. So it's really, it's really ideal for students who enjoy interaction, they enjoy meeting people they have some confidence in being able to present ideas. And yeah, and that's been really useful over the last few years to have students who can do that and promote the student experience at SOAS. We have early bird discounts. So it's £500 off tuition fees if a student accepts their ICC foundation offer by the end of May. And there's also 10% progression discounts so students who progress from ICC to an undergraduate subject at SOAS will get a 10% discount off tuition fees as well if they progress the following year. Good. I think that's, that's all that I kind of feel like covered quite a lot there. If there's anything I haven't covered then feel free to ask questions now. And if not, I've got my email address there WH2 at SOAS.ac.uk. So if you want to email me and you want to ask me any questions or you'd like maybe to have a discussion with a current member of the student body, then I'm more than happy to put you in touch with them. So I don't know if there are any questions I will unshare so we can. Thanks, William. There's been, there have been sort of two questions that have come in that I can see. Hopefully you can see them on your side as well. Both relating to just sort of understanding the difference about the regular sort of foundation year and the ICC program. Is that something you could touch upon a little bit? Yeah, yeah. So, so, so really the, I mean, one, one difference, but it's not, it's not, it's not exclusively, but one difference is, you know, I mean, obviously we're, we're dealing predominantly with international students and the foundation year is dealing predominantly with home students. The foundation year is, is to some extent for students who have completed their UK. They've graduated from UK high school and they need to do an extra year of study in order to get up to the right academic level to then progress to undergraduate study. We're dealing predominantly with students maybe who are coming from educational structures where it's a requirement for students to do an extra year before they can kind of graduate in a UK sense. So there's, there's that side of things. I think the other, the other main point to make is that the foundation year is really focusing on, it's part of a four or five year undergraduate degree. So, so if a student joins the foundation year, the assumption is that they are going to progress to SOAS and complete an undergraduate program at SOAS. For the, for our international foundation program, it's a, it's a kind of self contained one year program, and then students can then through UCAS apply to, to continue to study at SOAS, or they can apply for other universities in the rest of the UK or the rest of the world. So, at the end of the foundation year program, there isn't any quality students don't get any kind of qualification, they're just finishing the first year of an extended undergraduate degree. Whereas, at the end of the ICC international foundation year students are awarded a certificate which, which they can then use to progress to other universities if they want to. So, so, so therefore, for, for the, I've got to get this right now so for foundation year students will apply through UCAS as any undergraduate applicant, but they're applying to take an extra year before they start their undergraduate studies for ICC students will be applying completely separately they don't apply through UCAS, and then during the ICC year, they will apply for undergraduate study through UCAS. So I hope that's amazing. I think that's a fantastic answer very comprehensively. It took me a while to work out the difference. There's been a question from Alonzo there can you see that one. When you apply to the program, when I program, when will you be expected by the administration body is it possible for the applicant which is to study it. So I'm not, I'm not exactly clear about the first question certainly will it be possible for the applicant which is an international student studying the main campus. Yes, absolutely that's an absolutely central part of the experience. Students are currently studying on campus. And as I mentioned in the, in the presentation, they have the opportunity that really they are so as students and they, they have access to all of the facilities that any other degree level so as student has whether the library involvement in a university in the student union activities, student union clubs and societies whether that's use of student support and student advice and well being. All of those things are available to students. But the first, I think the first part of the question might be referring to sort of processing times after applications and when you can sort of expect to be hearing back from maybe the admissions and sort of admin teams who are dealing with with applications. All right, yeah so so basically yeah just in just generally in terms of the application process. As I said is one of the differences between foundation year and the, and this ICC international foundation is that students will be applying to the application for the ICC foundation separately, kind of, you know, not part of the UCAS process. So once we receive the application. Normally, normally I'd say the turnaround is a matter of days, unless we would like in some cases we like to maybe consult with the applicant. It's not something that is unclear about their application, or maybe in terms of their study plan if we feel that they're studied if, if, if we're not sure whether our program is going to fit this student study plan. Then we will normally get in touch with students and arrange a kind of informal discussion. And, you know, maybe, maybe 20%, 25% of students will kind of get in contact with just to have more of a discussion it's not a test or anything it's just really for us to make sure that our, you know, because once a student is on a foundation program and this is kind of bridging them to degree level study it's really important that they are really clear about what their options are, and they are also really clear about about what they might not be able to achieve on a particular foundation program because we don't want students to come on to the program with a very clear idea of what they can achieve and where they might be able to progress, rather than coming in thinking that they can use a foundation program to kind of go anywhere and study anything. Most foundation programs are not like that I mean there are kind of rules and regulations and quality control and students have to meet requirements. So, yeah, so that's a very long-winded answer to your question, maybe, so it's really just a matter of days if everything is clear if the person wants to stay into strong. If it looks like they are going to meet the academic conditions then they'll get an offer in a matter of days. Or in a matter of days they will get contact probably from me to be invited for just a discussion about an aspect of their application just so we're clear before we make the decision. Brilliant. We do still have a couple of moments so if anyone would like to put another question in, do you feel free while we wait for that William, something you touched upon there. I actually want to just come through, can you see that in the Q&A? From Christina. I don't know whether this is more of a kind of undergraduate question than a foundation question. I think sometimes progression to second year, I think, I mean, Dan you might have a better idea, but progression to second year is often quite difficult because because of the way that undergraduate programs are structured, the second year often follows quite is quite closely connected to what students have studied in the first year. So if they haven't studied what they needed to have studied in the first year really to get the most from the second year, then it causes problems. So I don't know whether it's purely down to credits. It might also be down to the admissions tutor in the politics department looking at the modules that a student is studying and checking that they cover what will be studied in the first year of an international relations program. Is that right? Exactly that, William. So Christina, you might find it helpful to because unfortunately there's not just one answer to your question, it's quite dependent on the circumstances and situations, what the exact course you're studying at the moment is like and the program you want to go on to as well and how closely they align. I'd recommend that you send an email to our study inbox. So the email address is study study at sowas.ac.uk. I'll pop it into the chat now as well. So that's a general email address for any of those kind of questions. And someone within the team will be able to get back to you and speak to you a little bit further about that one. And a question from Alonzo there, William. Oh, I missed that one. Oh, sorry in QA, sorry. It was the program, but it was telling me the first language. Well, there's kind of two answers to that really. The first is that the English language in a sense students having to satisfy two different requirements. There's the there's the requirement for the program. And there's the requirement for the visa. And what's happened really because the visa requirements have become slightly more strict over the years. A lot of a lot of universities really align their requirements to what's required for the visa. So, regardless of regardless of whether you come from a country where English is your first language or not, if you are applying for a foundation level program and this is the international foundation rather than the foundation year that the UK foundation was talking about before. But if you if you're if you if you're progressing at foundation level and you need a visa for a foundation level program, a one year foundation level program, then you will have to in terms of the visa show the appropriate level of English. You can't just say I come from a country where English is the first language, unless that there are a few exceptions to that there are a few exceptions to that. But for the majority of students, they will have to provide a UK VI approved secure English language test cells, SELT, which is what it's sometimes called. So that could be an IELTS test, but it has to be UK VI approved, it could be UK VI Pearson as well. But it's more to do with satisfying the visa requirement than satisfying the requirements for the program. I think if somebody's coming from a country where English is the first language, then we would obviously take that into account in terms of the requirements for the program itself, but they still have to satisfy the visa requirements. So that's really where the English certificate comes in. And students do, generally speaking, have to provide some kind of UK VI approved UK VI is the is the visa board within agency within the UK. So UK VI approved. And that's all on the website. That's all on the SOAS website. If you go to the SOAS website about English language requirements, there's a lot of information about that there. But it's an important question because I think sometimes it can be quite confusing for for applicants to know whether they should provide one or not, whether it needs to be UK VI approved or not. The best thing is playing safe is to get UK VI approved IELTS or Pearson test. And, and actually the level of English that's required for the visa is actually relatively low compared to what is required for the program itself. So, so, so normally the visa will just require a student to get around around, I think what you what you need to do is to aim to get an IELTS score of 5.5 through a UK VI approved IELTS test. That's the simplest way to do it. Anyway, I think we're kind of running late. So we might have to finish there. Is that right? That's fantastic. I'm just propping quickly that web link as well that you mentioned into the chat for everyone about English language requirements. In case they'd like to take that away for a little bit of further reading because it can sometimes be a little bit complicated to get your head around, can't it, William? Very complicated. We're getting there though, aren't we? Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, as I said before, if any of you, if any of you have any questions, you can always feel free to email me wh2 at sowas.ac.uk. And, you know, whether it's about specifically about the program or whether it's more generally about studying in the UK, I'm perfectly happy to answer questions because I think all of those, you know, making sure that students have a really clear, complete knowledge of what it's like to study in the UK is really important. So it's an open invitation. Fantastic. Thanks, William. Thank you to everyone for joining us today. That does bring us to the end of the session. The recording will be made available as well to anyone who wants to watch this back if you joined partway through or missed any of it. So thank you all very much. And just remember in the chat, there are a couple of key links and email addresses in case you need to get in touch with us after the session. Thanks everyone. Bye bye.