 Thank you, Laura. So welcome everybody. I'm going to start by giving a very brief introduction to our department and the School of Finance and Management, and then I'm going to give the taste session on human resource management. So just to introduce myself, I mean Laura said I'm a senior lecturer, as is my colleague Unsook who joins us today. So I'm the undergraduate director, which means I'm sort of in charge of all our undergraduate programs. And Unsook is the convener for our BSc management program. And our emails are there in case you want to contact us afterwards, or any of our colleagues. We're all listed on our web page on the science website. So we have two undergraduate degrees. We have a BSc management and we have a BSc Accounting and Finance. So I assume that you're all dialing in today because you're interested in maybe one of those options. So I'm just going to briefly talk to both of those. First of all, just to define what management is, it's the study of business, but in the private and public sector organizations. And it's a study of business, but placing it within economic, political and cultural environments. And of course, those are very important at science when we think about regions and our identity, thinking about how culture impacts on business is very important. So not just looking at it from a Eurocentric perspective. And that's why we offer a distinctive way of studying management. So our management programs offer a global perspective, an international perspective, and we discuss, you know, real issues facing organizations. So you will get a conventional analysis as you would at any business school or in any management and accounting and finance program anywhere in the UK. But what we offer is a real regional expertise, particularly in the SOS regions. So Middle East, Korea, Japan, China in particular, we focus on. And so we have a range of staff and academics who deliver our programs who are all research active and published in their various fields as well. So what would you study if you joined our BSc management program degree? This is just an indication of some of the subjects that you might be studying. So you would study the principles of what management is, you would study things like how organizations behave, business strategy, accounting and analytical techniques, marketing and human resource management, maybe, which is the taster session I'm going to deliver today, because that's one of the optional modules that I teach, which is available for both the accounting and finance and the BSc management degree. You can also, and this is what sets us apart from other colleges, you can flavor your degree with a study of our regions. So you could have a look at some of the contemporary business and economic issues in, for example, East Asia or MENA, for example. So you can choose some modules to flavor your degree with. And if you want to as well, you could choose a source language to study. So there is option to tailor your degree if you want to, a little bit more to our regional and global identity and add language if you want to. The BSc accounting and finance is a much more skilled and tailored professional degree. So it's a profession that sits at the heart of every organization. So whether you're an NGO, a private sector or a huge multinational, you need to have solid operational finances at the core of your organization. And so many people will want to study accounting and finance because it is one of those core professions that every business or organization needs. If you take our BSc accounting and finance degree, it will be taught by professionals in the field. And you will also get accreditation with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the Association of... I'm trying to think what this stands for, but it's Accounting Association as well. So that means you'll get six exemptions from ACC, the professional body for accounting, and eight exemptions from the SEMA professional body if you complete the BSc accounting and finance. And just to end this talk about introducing the programs, our entry requirements are there in case you're interested. So the A-level requirement, we do sort of ask for MESS B or Grade 6 at GCSE because of the quantitative elements that are in the degrees, particularly in the accounting and finance degree. So that's just a very quick introduction to our programs. I'm going to pause here just before I start talking about the taster session, just in case there's any general questions about our department and about those two degree programs that are very, very quickly introduced. So if there's any questions at this point on the degrees themselves before I launch into our taster lecture, happy to take those questions now. I can't see the chat, but if Unsuk or Laura noticed anyone asking any questions, do let me know. You don't have any questions just yet, but perhaps if you do have any questions about the programs that come into your mind during the taster session, you can also ask those in the Q&A. Absolutely. We will have plenty of time for questions at the end, and I'm happy to take all questions at the end. I just wanted to pause there in case anything's springing into anyone's mind, but if not, I'll just pause for a little bit longer in case someone's typing. If not, I'll carry on in a second to our taster session. Can I just add, in terms of the entry requirement, those who are taking BTEC, we consider for the DD, two distinctions in your BTEC, we also consider for offering the place for the student, for those who are taking the BTEC degree. Yeah, thank you, Unsuk. I really should add that into my presentation, actually, that BTEC is obviously a relevant qualification as well. If you haven't quite met your grades, you can go into clearing or you can apply and we can look at the whole profile and make a decision as well. If you're worried about maybe not quite meeting those grades, there is the possibility of still applying. Helen, there was one question from the one participant. You can see from the Q&A box. I can't see it because I'm sharing my power point. Oh yeah, so the question is, what employment opportunity does the regional focus offer? Okay, so we've had students go on to a range of employment. Some become accountants, some obviously go into study in multinationals, some go out to, if they study the regions, in particular the language options, some go out to the countries that they're studying, so they go out to Korea, China, wherever and they get jobs there. So we've got a lot of ex-students and alumni out in the regions, the countries themselves that they offer and they do a range of jobs, some work for local companies, some work for international companies out there in subsidiaries. So it's because it's business and accounting and finance, which can operate across all different types of organizations, it's difficult to say that people go into one profession, they go into a very wide range of professions. Do you want to add anything on to that about your work? Oh yeah, I want to add, if anybody want to see the real example of where our graduates are working at the moment, you can type my name in Google and then you can find my Lincoln in the access because most of my link in my Lincoln is our graduate student, so you can see where they work, you can find the evidence of how they globalize in terms of their workplace, in terms of the industry they work, so many students are graduate working in the major big consulting firms or some already become the entrepreneur and some working in the financial sector and some are doing their PhD and their master degree further. So please contact my Lincoln or Helen's Lincoln, you can see all the examples of our graduates where they're working currently. Yeah, that's right, I'm also linked in with lots of my previous students and because I'm a Japan specialist a lot of my previous students are out in Tokyo and other places in Japan working so I keep in touch with them and when I go out there on research and field work we often get together and have a meal, so it's really nice to be able to link into them that way. So yeah, check out our LinkedIn websites to see who we're, there are many of our students are on there. Helen, there's another question you can see from the question and answer box. The student said, you said we need a grade six in the Master's in GCSE but in my offer you ask for a grade seven, that student applying to the management degree at BSE Management, is it because I'm an international student can you answer on it? I don't think so, I thought it was a six but unless I've got that wrong I'm sure it was a six that we asked for it was it the old B which as I understand it is a six in the new one. Yes it is a six. Yes, yeah it should be a six for GCSE Maths. If you've been asked for a seven, do feel free to contact me and I'll put my email address in the chat box and I can look into that for you as well. So what is your current predicted grade and what is your GCSE Maths if you don't mind to share with us because that inquiry based on the anonymous attendance? So I mean what you could do is you could when I when I tap me my email address into the chat box here you can always just message me and and let me know exactly exactly what your predicted grades are and I can look into that with you. Yeah that would be great and Unsuk, Unsuk is the admissions tutor for the BSE Management so he can look at that as well, so do contact me yeah. Yeah, do get in touch yeah. With the new criteria of the nine grade in the GCSE it's very it's always have some great part okay to what extent whether five or six which one is a B someone said is a higher C plus or or lower B so we are very flexible in terms of the judging your GCSE grade yeah. Great. Foundation in okay. The student said okay I don't have a grade six in maths however I will be doing the foundation in management economics and law will passing this insurer. Yeah yeah that's that that can be accepted yes yeah so if you don't have that grade in maths at GCSE level but you're doing your A levels or B tech or foundation year in economics or business or some you know related subject then we can accept that instead so as I said we can be very flexible we can look at the whole profile I hope that helps. Any more questions or? Another question is does the university provide any support with finding a job after graduation yeah. We have a careers service, we have a science careers service and so they offer lots of different events and so particularly in your final year it's a good idea to you know contact the careers service and sometimes they'll be tailored to our department as well if we get any job offers from our you know job notifications from our alumni we share them with students etc but we have a dedicated science careers service that can help you it's good to go to their events particularly in your final year. I want to add up in that answer of course in an institutional level we have a system to help out for students to find their job but more important thing is because most of our graduates working very well in our industry which means it builds like the reputation of SOAS so having degree with SOAS in your undergraduate you pretty much have some guarantee for the potential employer to have a certain level of certainty in terms of the quality of our graduate so we can guarantee that sort of thing it's not because we are good we are good as well as our students at work hard and then doing very well during their study in SOAS then it is some sort of the mixture function for the helping from our SOAS institution as well as expected growing up your your ability as well as finally already built in our reputation in the industry sector so it is a combination of like the working combination okay combination when you find a job in the future time yeah yeah we also have very strong alumni networks um in the UK but also abroad as well so you can tap into those networks um whether you're in the UK or abroad any other questions more generally at this point in time okay there was some sort of question uh as we are on doing exam this year and not completely sure I am how we're being graded how flexible would the grade of acceptance be because of the situation of no any uh the A level okay yeah I mean we fully understand the situation that you're in this year I mean I have a daughter myself doing A levels this year so it's all going to be assessed on as well yeah so we fully understand that it's going to be by coursework assessment and and that you will get a grade of some description and so um you know that will be the grades that you apply with but please do apply as I said even if you've fallen below what we require because we we are aware it's exceptional circumstances and we try to be as flexible as possible and hopefully offer you the degree program that you want to apply for so yeah go ahead and apply to us anyway having said that I think is uh it's very important to address in your personal statement yeah your clear goal regarding this particular degree your accounting and finance or management so it is better to address your clear like the goal career goal and then passion and then keen interest why you want to study you know particular why you want to study and so us so it's so showing that sort of like specific interest and your aim and your goal will be helpful uh when uh the examiner assess your application yeah yeah absolutely because as I said we look at the whole profile uh so the personal statement's very important within there anything else popping up let me check it it doesn't look like we have any other questions at the moment Helen so if you want to okay well we're we're we're going to have time at the end to take other questions if people think about them as they go along so okay I'm going to um give a little taster session now on why human resource management matters um I teach human resource management it's an optional module in the final year of your program so you can choose it when you're uh if you want to um as as part of your undergraduate program with us and to answer the question up front um it matters because most organizations no matter how big or small of course still rely on people people are at the heart of the organization the human are the main resources of an organization they give it competitive edge so even though we are increasingly reliant on technology and there is a little Honda Asimov robot here right in the middle uh we you know we haven't moved to the situation yet where we are fully reliant on robotics and techno technology alone so people really matter people are still at the heart of any organization big or small and so that's why managing them is is really important as part of organizational strategy so a little definition there human resource management is the process of hiring but also developing employees and crucially it's about making sure that the way you manage them adds value to the organization so everybody that works for you should be adding value to your organization that's how to make it strategic so if you were to take human resource management what subjects do you think you might study so if you sign up to my human resource management module what subjects do you think you might study over that 10 weeks of study feel free to type topics into the q and a chat let me just open it give me an idea of what you think you might study if you're studying human resource management what topics might you expect to study anything popping up i don't see anything i've opened the q and a uh motivational series yeah some attendance said uh equal opportunity in workplaces yeah employment low yeah yeah great okay all right so as well yeah great leadership teamwork HR strategy uh huh brilliant okay all pretty knowledge on it right yeah that's good so here are some of the key um things that you would study so uh i'm going to run through each of these i've got a quick slide and all of these just to introduce what they are so these are the kinds of topics you would study and when we study them we think you know what is involved in these functions of HR they're all functions of HR what how can HR managers deliver these as strategy and what are the some of the key challenges and difficulties that you might find you know find and what are solutions so that's how we approach the study of HRM so i'm going to go through each one really quickly just to introduce the subject so first talent management and resourcing talent is a real buzzword now and has been for the last uh 15 to 20 years so talent uh you know is your employees in terms of their skills their knowledge their capabilities so what you want is high performing talent that's another buzzword so you're looking for high performing individuals in in the market to come into your organization and deliver for you and then once um once you look for them there's a lot of um ways that you can try and recruit people i mean some of them are really traditional still job interview face-to-face interview even if it uses technology these days through skype is still one of the main recruitment methods that face-to-face interview before you hire someone is still really really popular globally but there is a lot more reliance on things like social media and even artificial intelligence to help with the recruitment and selection process these days particularly if it's a large organization recruiting on mass around the world and then once you have talent it's about um developing them as we'll see but also about keeping them making sure that you're not losing them to competitors making sure that you're retaining key people so retention and turnover strategies is something we look at um and things like succession planning how do you how do you manage talent in terms of movement within your company and if that's a global company that's a really complicated part of HR just keeping track of everybody and making sure they're in the right jobs and moving them around particularly as they go up career ladders for example so that's um resourcing and talent learning and development is a really big um function of HR that's you know training and developing your employees um many uh sometimes it's called HRD human resource development so many particularly big companies will use a combination of their own internal strategies but also rely on a lot of external platforms for delivering learning so it's often described as a learning management system uh some learning will be very formal you know sending people on courses for example and some will be very informal such as learning on the job learning from peers having coaching and mentoring so the learning ecosystem is developing a lot now there are so many ways that you can help your employees learn new skills upgrade their skills uh so there's a range of platforms and activities that you can do so some of them have been around for a very long time some are much much newer and rely on technology so just a range of of things that you can do everything from traditional classroom based learning sending people on courses to internal coaching and mentoring but then using technology perhaps people are signing up for webinars and MOOCs webinars what we're running today for example to learn something that will help them in their job or maybe help them get promoted so learning and development is a big part of human resource management delivery as well then next we have performance management and that is as it says in the name making sure that your people your talent are performing well that they that you're encouraging high performance and monitoring high performance so traditionally many companies will have some kind of cycle where they plan out how they're going to manage and monitor people's performance usually traditionally in an annual cycle so you'll be planning setting people objectives managing and monitoring them throughout having a review session with them usually an annual review for example a face-to-face sit-down one-to-one to see how they're getting on and their job see if they're meeting targets for example and then think about whether if they're doing well whether they get some kind of reward and then start the cycle again so we look at the various techniques in performance management for example we look at 360 degrees feedback in appraisal where you get lots of different people feeding into any one of our own performance reviews we look at how you can set key performance indicators and targets and goals measurements for people to strive for in their job and we even look at how performance management is sort of increasingly influenced by other areas such as sport for example so high performance sport techniques can be used in business now too in terms of encouraging performance and then we look at changes so traditionally you would have a one-to-one annual review in many companies that's still the case but more more often than not many companies are moving to a system of more fluid regular flexible performance management so we can be monitored through technology and iPads for example every day in our job so there's an example here of Hans has done a presentation and he's asking for feedback his colleagues or his clients can feed in and say well this is how we think you did today Hans and and the organization can collect this kind of data as we'll see when we look at HR analytics so we for every element of HR that we look at we're very conscious that technology is helping us with our management of people more and more these days reward management very crucial many of us don't want to work for free we want some kind of reward or pay for doing so so reward is very subject to how people perform but also subject to how the business is doing so if the business is not making profit it's unlikely to be able to deliver some of that reward back to employees so reward management it can be a very complex operation in terms of decision this is a real-life example from a company when they're thinking about what they're how they're going to when they're reviewing their pay they have to think about what how the business is doing what kind of budget they have and also measure the market so they measure the market look at what competitors are paying make sure they're paying competitive rates maybe in any given year they might be able to pay slightly above the competitive rate if they really want to attract top talent but reward is not just about pay and financial benefits so sometimes it can be other types of reward could be the offer of doing training paid by the company could be extra responsibility and promotion it can be recognition in terms of prizes for example so there's lots of different ways that you can reward and motivate people as well so it's an interesting field to look at then we have employee relations and engagement so this is both of these really try to manage that employer employee relationship that we have employee relations is quite the formal relationship so it looks at everything and some people put this into the chat it looks at employment law and legislation it looks at how you're supposed to deal with people formally within the law so how you hire them how you discipline them how you might make redundancies for example how you might have to negotiate with unions employee relations is very specific to countries so because it's very determined by employment legislation and employment law can differ from country to country so we really have to be aware of that when we study employee relations what the law says in the UK may be very different to what the law says in China or in the Middle East countries for example so it's very country specific employee engagement some people mentioned motivational theories already so things like motivation trust have been around for a long time employee engagement tries to bring all of that together now it's how do you employee engagement is how do you have engaged focused passionate employees that are motivated have loyalty are committed so and how do you communicate with them so it's sort of a higher level motivational theory that we look at it's about how you manage people effectively to make sure they're highly engaged and tuned into the company and delivering for you so that's a field that takes on a lot of those theoretical issues of motivation and trust that have been around for some time then we have diversity management which students really love studying in fact most of them end up answering the essay and exam question on this for some reason because they like the subject so I'm sure you're aware what diversity is again it's prescribed by law so and this is the UK Quality Act of 2010 which protects all of us in the UK under these nine characteristics listed here in the workplace so we cannot be discriminated against in the workplace for having one or more of these particular characteristics but diversity is much more than that so there are some legally protected characteristics but there are lots of different things that make us different and unique every one of us is different and unique because of all our different background education and our and our and our ethnicity etc so the big buzzword now is diversity and inclusion how do you make sure that you embrace everybody's uniqueness how do you capitalise that in terms of being a creative and inclusive organisation so we study things like race and ethnicity we study gender and we look at how multiple you know different generations age diversity in the workplace can be quite a challenge to manage in organisations as well so students really like that study of diversity management which is an increasingly important part of human resource management now particularly as we live in more multicultural countries but also as of course global multinationals that go around employing lots of different people around the world as well HR analytics is the quantitative side of HR so it's about understanding how to measure HR how to measure performance for example how to collect data relating to HR statistic to people some of the things we do are really hard to measure motivations hard to measure for example but other things are easier to measure so absenteeism for example is easy to measure so some of what we what we deliver is is quantifiable some is not but it's really about collecting information on people and their performance and feeding it back into the organisation feeding it back to individuals and teams but feeding it back into the understanding of talent management as well so this is an example from Deloitte Deloitte takes a lot of information from their employees feeds it into their systems calls it big data and analytics for the and then and then produces what they call the Netflix of learning their learning and development ecosystem that they produce in terms of training opportunities is really crunched through from what how people are delivering already and what they need in their organisation so analytics and robotics and technology is a big part of of measuring HR now and and thinking of new ways to deliver HR functions like performance and learning and development for example and then finally strategic HRM is how to make sure that HR is not just an administrative back office function it's a real business partner to the organisation it's a function that really drives the organisation forward and so this gets to the point of what we're saying you know why does HR matter HR is a field that's growing in importance it's growing because business is increasingly complex global competition new technologies diverse workforces as we've seen so there's lots more complexity to work at the moment we're in a really complex situation for work which i'm going to talk about in a minute we're in a pandemic and we're in lots of different new modes of working today we're delivering this online to you normally you would come into the summer campus and we would chat face to face so we're all working in in lots of different complex situations so keeping abreast of that and responding to that is really important employees are more demanding and rightly so we want work-life balance we want flexible working we want career progression we want individual career programs we don't want to necessarily work for the same organisation for our entire life like maybe our grandparents did so employees are more demanding and organisations have to sit up and take notice to that so HR is a much more complicated field HR itself has to demonstrate to the organisation that it can add value that it knows what it's measuring it can deliver results and it can deliver high performing talent for the organisation and it's increasingly expensive so recruiting good talent is expensive uh heeding employment legislation is is an increasing cost so overall HR has to be strategic has to know what it's doing and it has to be accountable to the business like any other function in the organisation so it's really moved away from traditionally being seen as just an administrative back office function that just hires and fires to a much more strategic value-adding function that sits in the organisation alongside other other departments like finance sales production etc it's just as strategic so it's about getting the balance right making sure that you have HR tailored to the business objectives but also that you're satisfying individual needs as well so if you think of the stone here is the business and these are the people you don't want to wait it in one direction you want it to have more of a balance and that's really complicated to deliver but it's about getting the function and the image and the strategy of HR right within the organisation and then finally just talking about COVID for example and I'm just adding this slide in uh you know there's a lot of discussion now about how work is changing because of the pandemic we're in a really unique complex situation businesses are having to respond to that and HR are having to respond as well so this is a graph from a company called Gartner who's done a lot of work on this so they're saying there's lots of new trends going on some have been around for a while so data collection on HR and talent and remote work has been around for some time now but we've seen a massive spike in it of course remote work working from home that is something that's just gone incredibly through the roof it's been around for some time bubbling in many economies but of course now it's just increased exponentially the employer is a safety net is is much more important so things like well-being employee well-being and support again have been around for some time but many organisations have to really intensively invest in that now because as we are in a crisis situation and as we're not in the workplace together we may need different types of support and community and then you know the government's playing a role in that as well in many countries in terms of helping companies with furlough and things like that so it's accelerated a lot of trends relating to work in HR also it's meant that companies have to be really critical about how they evaluate what's needed so what are the in a crisis situation how is your business going to change are you forced to stop your business and furlough workers are you forced to do something different particularly if you're in a frontline key worker business of any kind so it's about thinking what are the critical skills and roles that you need in a crisis who can deliver maybe you need to move people around in the organisation to deliver them and a lot of talk about humanising workers and so who are the top tier employers who's treating their workers really well in the during the COVID pandemic and who's not so I think what we'll see is we'll see a lot of top tier employers emerge out of this those who really handled and cared about their workers in their HR during the pandemic and so going forward we'll see a lot of there's a lot of talk about resilience recognising fragility in your organisation recognising where there's gaps in your talent for example how to redesign your organisation and business to be resilient to be flexible to be adaptive to learn from crisis so we're in a real complex situation at the moment and HR has to play a key role in that within the business so it's it's quite it's it's not fun necessarily to be in a pandemic but it offers organisations a lot of lessons and how they cope with you know their business as a whole but also how they cope with their their employees and talent so to sum up if you came and studied HR or with us you would you know these these types of areas that I've looked at and very briefly introduced you would study them with us in the same way that they would be studied at any institution that offered an HR module that what makes us distinctive as well is that we will think about these HR functions not just as as as a loan as a business HR function but within society culture history and so we look at our regions as well so we we have when I teach this I have several sessions looking at HR in other countries as well so we look at HR in Korea Japan China Middle East and we say well how is people management and HR different over there how does it develop differently to what extent is it a hybrid mix of sort of best practice you know western based HR or what to what extent is it Chinese style HR for example or is it a hybrid how is Japanese HR progressed over the years how is it different when Japanese companies go abroad so we look at it from a very regional perspective as well we have a lens into those those countries and so we don't just consider HR from that western UK USA historical perspective which is often the case in many institutions that teach HR we take it beyond that and think about how global HR is distinctive in many different locales so I'm going to leave it there hopefully you've had an idea of of what HR is and maybe you've even thought that would be fun to study if you came so I'm going to stop it here stop sharing my slide and we still have time I think for any questions doesn't have to be on HR it can be on anything you like but we have some some time left for Q&A. Helen there's a one question from the Q&A box you can see now okay so is there unique things to include in the personal statement yeah I guess so apologies that our finance and accounting convener couldn't be here today and so can I involved on the management program rather than the accounting and finance but I guess it would just be you when you're applying for any degree or program you know why are you particularly interested in that subject so as I said accounting and finance is a very focused professional technical subject and so it'd be good to say what why you why you're interested in that subject in particular maybe your career aspirations maybe something that has inspired you to take it because of something you've learned at school or a part-time job that you've had anything you can add to so it doesn't so that your personal statement doesn't read as a generic statement but it's really tailored to the subject that you're applying for. Can I add in that way for example like the sum of statements saying that way oh I do the school orchestra I do this sports activity and then I do this activity this activity then finish it is one of the typical stereotypes of a poor statement when you apply any particular degree regardless it could be finance and accounting yep I would like to say that any sort of your experience your activity you try to link with your applied okay degree to what extent your activity your study is related to your applied degree and then to what extent it helps for your future career if I take that degree so showing your logical plan in your career or to try to link what you have done so far so try to pass your effort to link your experience into the your applied study and then appeal yes I need that study you know to further develop my goal and my dream so this is a perfect type of the statement I would like to suggest yeah. There's a question there about BBC I mean I think if you get BBC and you really want to come to so I just go into clearing and and then see see what happens I mean I can't say for sure that you will get in if it's significantly lower but I wouldn't say don't apply I mean I would come into the clearing system would you agree on that yes I agree yeah it is it is a bit difficult to say formally now because yeah that marks isn't given by your teacher it's not by your official examination which means it's very difficult to judge however as Helen said you you still have opportunity and then we might consider yep and remember that you get UCAS you get an overall UCAS points and that's based on other things as well whether you've done other other other things like Duke of Edinburgh award or have you know music so there's lots there's lots of other ways to get UCAS points too if in September COVID and we have yeah so I mean we're hoping to go back to campus in September obviously and have have face-to-face lectures again we're still going to decide how that might work that will depend where we are in the pandemic we might have a more hybrid situation where we record at the same time we don't know yet but we always put all our even before the pandemic we always put all our slides and lecture slides up and into our intranet system anyway so yeah we're going to work out what what will happen so there may be a hybrid situation that occurs but I think if we go back to face-to-face it's good to get people back into the classroom grade five in GCSE maths and businesses that yeah if you've got businesses A levels that's great yeah we can we can consider that even if the mass grade is slightly lower as I said if you've got business or economics or something relevant in A levels or B tech alongside maths even if your maths is a little bit lower we can consider that and yeah if you've got just one grade that's lower still apply because we can to as I said we can take the whole profile into consideration and if you've just missed in one area we can we can look at the whole profile for the case of the Selena okay I don't know whether my pronunciation is right what is your expected pretty to the mark for A level business at the moment so while she while she maybe replies to that question someone asked will there be a freshers week or is it cancelled so this last September we had a freshers week but it was more online so we still had it but it wasn't as face-to-face obviously in September we hope that we're getting back to face-to-face freshers week but we still we still had one this year but it was distanced so it's not quite the same but we still had it so it still gives you the ability to meet people go and and and join clubs etc but they probably didn't run in the same way as they do in a normal year but hopefully we'll be back to normal I was going to ask Alianora what your experience was of your freshers week oh yeah that's great yeah she said she's got a B right now so a B is good for economic is it economics did she say business business yeah yeah so we are overall requirement is a ABB right so so business is B and then if you can manage with others as a and B yeah we we highly likely consider yeah for that case yeah and the other question is do we need a level mask for the finance no so you don't need a level mess we want GCSE mess but if you're doing economics and business for a levels which it seems that you are that's great yeah yeah and as the freshers week I've been at service for the past three years so I've had the chance to attend both the physical and the virtual freshers week because it's not only dedicated to fresher every cohort of students can actually go to the freshers week so the virtual one last year looked like Helen said so we had virtual meetings for all these societies involved in the student union and we used Microsoft Teams to attend all these meetings and but I really hope you I really hope that you guys will have the chance to actually attend the physical one and the pandemic won't be a thing anymore in September so in that case it will be hosted physically as so was in the main building and in the other buildings that so was is made up so yeah it's a great chance to get to know all the other societies and fellow students as well because if you're joining society you're likely to meet people that share your same interests because they will join the same society so it's a great opportunity whether it is physical or virtual thanks Helen Nora that's really helpful thank you Helen have you respond to the uh Marian's uh the quest I think so yeah I said yeah yeah yeah yeah economics business is highly relevant so no problem at all yeah someone said they got enough AAB and they're not sure what they're going to get but yeah as I said if you do get slightly lower grades please still do apply because we will consider we know it's exceptional circumstances we will look at the whole profile we look at the grades so even if they're slightly below yeah we will still look at your applications so please do apply if you don't have face to face lectures how do you meet other students so um for lectures you tend to be in a large group like you are today but for tutorial you will have tutorial classes for every module where you go into much smaller groups so there might be 10 students or 15 students in a tutorial group and you'll put your cameras on and you and you meet each other that way also our students have been setting up whatsapp groups and and other um zoom groups to to um you know study together etc so there are options of course but of course we hope that will be going back to online face-to-face lectures and meetings and if I may jump in right there yeah please do yeah a great chance to meet other students is to actually move into student accommodations yeah so the SOAS only student accommodation that will be done with the house and where you can meet a lot of other SOAS students mostly pressures as well so that's a great chance in case um SOAS is forced to host only virtual lectures then moving into accommodation would be a great chance yeah that's right another question about any any plan for a webinar for international students maybe Laura can answer on that question yeah sure so throughout the year we have a range of webinars and will let inquirers and students know about them and applicants that are looking to attend those sorts of webinars throughout the year um last year particularly for international students we had orientation sessions so we had um sort of uh pre-departure sessions for international students coming from overseas um and then we also had um sessions to um help students orientate themselves once they arrived so again this year they were offered online um but but next year hopefully um they'll be back to being offered in person but obviously we have to run them online again we would do that and Helen maybe you can answer on that question in terms of our optional module to our experience over it with economics yeah yeah so if you you can look at the detailed program structures a year by year on our website but you'll see that sometimes and um some some some of the modules that you have to take a compulsory and then you get every year you get to choose from an options list and so sometimes there'll be some economics courses in the options list sometimes there'll be our courses maybe they'll even be courses from another department if it's a regional focus for example so you can choose from a range of options and so sometimes there is overlap with other departments in the sense that you have the ability to choose some modules to flavour and tailor your degree from outside our department as well even though the the core of your degree will be our modules obviously from our department and then in the chatting room we have a question can studying in accounting and finance allow someone to work in a bank or a similar organization and then what is the ratio of the independent learning and the learning from the lecture yeah yeah i mean so accounting and finance is is necessary for every organization as we said so you can go into a bank particularly or you can go into any other organization as as in that accounting and finance function function so yeah but particularly important and if you want to go into the banking sector then yeah definitely um obviously what's the cutoff date for offers to be sent you know Laura yeah so um it will depend on when you're when you made your application but generally speaking for students who've applied by the 29th of January deadline um the deadline for universities it has a hole in the UK to get back to you it will be the 20th of May in terms of our sort of um turnaround time uh it's around about three two to three weeks um so you should hear back within that sort of time scale um don't don't panic too much if you don't hear back dead on that time scale um it may be that we've got a lot of applications to get through at that particular time so it might just be taking slightly longer to process them at that point um but generally speaking the time scale that we try and get back to students is two to three weeks and that might differ depending on the universities that you've applied to as well and everyone has their own their own time scale that they work yeah so there's one uh one question about okay uh does SOAS help students pitch them how work with the programs like the excel yeah it is an important okay issue like the studying business and management or studying finance and and accounting for those who are applying for the finance accounting during of course uh is a combination between sort of okay learning the theory and then having the mindset of the being a good leader in that particular industry not just as a machine of course it's very important to learn uh to knowing the knowledge about the using the analytical tool so it's not just excel in in university level if especially if you join for the SOAS our management degree as well as accounting and finance you are going to have opportunity to learn key methodological analytical skill so you are going to have a chance to use the particular software statistic analytical software to apply to the rear analysis of the financial statement or their annual report or the key situational accounting statement so you are going to have a chance to learn to uh learn to the particular quantitative okay analytical software not just excel for example we're going to use SPSS or mv those like the such qualitative and quantitative computer basis analytical tool you are going to learn about it it's not just for the finance and accounting degree it is also for bsc management degree as well so as you can see from our website you can have a the module for the financial analysis or quantitative analysis and then key uh like the methodological course you can find it yep yeah someone asked about ABB yeah so our offers are AAB or ABB so yeah ABB is good um can you become a CFO with an accounting and finance degree you can certainly build your way up to being a CFO if you start out with an accounting and finance degree that's a very good start so yeah I hope I hope you do become a CFO one day CFOs definitely need accounting and finance skills and I think we we have an answer on the ratio of the independent learning and the learning from the lectures yeah so Eleanor kindly answered about 50-50 there as a student perspective yeah do you want to add anything on that in terms of the the lecture hours like the key structure for uh so so as our lecture hours two hours of lecture it is sort of one hour two hours lecture delivered by the lecture and then one hour four tutorial session we call it is it is run and then organized by the student so discuss the key issue long from the previous lecture and then you have an opportunity to discuss together using the case studies or typical financial statement so it's a small group of the discussion so basically you can say we can say that the lecture and the tutorial something around two hours to three hours per per module per week then in order to prepare that three hours lecture and tutorial you need to have a spend I would like to say around six to the ten hours of the readings and the preparation discuss with your colleagues and then classmates together so it is more I want to say a lot of independent study also involved in the university level and then which makes you're more happy because you lead your study not by force by the teacher okay we are we are all together with friends as well we have lots when we're on campus there's lots of little places around the campus where you can get together with friends and study together as well informally as well as formally in tutorial groups yeah how much do you earn on average after doing accounting degree well I don't know I don't know you see if I earn a lot but you have to build your way up to that yeah I'm not sure what do you think and average financial accountant what to be more than an academic I was saying so is it depends on what is the definition of work experience for getting offer from SOA you don't need to have any work experience because you just need to have a passion okay clear career goal of course when you start your your degree with a finance and accounting and so as I can give you some example a lot of our students apply for the internship during their summer vacation or winter vacation or during the term period they work as a part time in accounting firm or the bank yep and then try to build their CD to be uh the end of their final goal as real accountants and then finance analysis so you can you can share those kinds of the information with your friends and then also our career department also provide opportunity for the internship as well so it is sort of you you have to actively to find opportunity during the like the vacation time for your internship in related industry yeah this is my comment on it yeah yeah so how is the how are the degrees assessed well basically you have to get so you have to do a certain number of modules overall to get the degree and the modules are all assessed broadly similarly so you will have coursework and assignments or essays or quantitative coursework which may count for about 30 percent for example or 40 percent of your module and the other 60 to 70 percent will be an exam so that's usually how most of the modules are assessed that combination of coursework and exam and then each module builds up to the overall degree at the end and then you will come out with a first or a two one or a two two or a third degree so that's that's typical UK assessment there's a combination of exams and essays it depends on the subject so if it's an accounting and finance it might be more quantitative based exam if it's human resource management it's essay based exam for example so it depends how qualitative or quantitative the module is in terms of content so it's a combination of essays and more numerical tasks for accounting and finance and I think we've answered yeah so grade five in GCSE EMS but but also doing economics and stuff is good I think we answered that one yeah I know we're up to four o'clock now Laura do we want to yeah it's probably time for us to start wrapping up here but thank you very much to everyone for joining us and thank you Helen and as well and thank you Eleanor for being here too um if you do have any further questions do you feel free to contact us so you can contact us at studyatsoas.ac.uk with any general questions you have and I'm sure both Helen and Silk would be happy to answer any inquiries from you about the programs as well and so do you feel free to get in touch with them yeah oh I can I can answer on the final question regarding the math yes uh if if you're not good in the math we're just struggling in the exam uh yeah a certain exam you're going to be struggled however we can't we don't need to say in that sort of thing now because you are not you you will not know what you are going to be in a in a time in the exam so we are we also provide the module for the business math uh so it means uh those who are entering our module although they are not uh they didn't take the A level they have an opportunity to improve your math required level for uh for the capture and then learning uh the capture the required the learning requirement so don't worry about it once you become the so as a student everybody based on my experience they catch up the required the math level so don't worry about what is your current math level more important thing is your passion yeah yeah that's that's a very good answer we do have the business math option and also you know even if it's been a while since you've taken maths you will you you can catch up and well thanks everybody for coming along today do contact unsuk on myself if you've got further questions our webs you can google us on the science website or laura can be contacted as well study at soas.ac.uk I hope you enjoyed the session and I hope we see some of you at soas in september