 Well, why don't we get started and then people can join us later if they can. So welcome everyone to our virtual open day. And I'm going to be talking to you about our BA program in Development Studies and the joint program in which we call BA Development Studies and which allows you to take, do a joint degree with Development Studies with pretty much all of the other programs that SOAS offers. So I'm going to give you some background. What I'm not going to do is go through a structure of the way that the program looks because that's very easy to see on the website. Many of you will already have done that. Obviously, if you want to ask questions about that later, that's absolutely fine. So there will be plenty of time for questions. If you don't want to, if you want to ask a question, you can kind of raise your virtual hand or you can type it into the chat box as you prefer. And I'll try and keep an eye on both. If I've missed anything and you've been waiting a while, do feel free to unmute yourself and tell me you're waiting there. And of course, you can get in touch with me afterwards if you have any further questions. So before I kind of start to talk about the program, just maybe to give some context in which our program sits. So over the past few decades, there's been, I suppose, a mixed story when we think about global development. There's been huge progress in numbers of children going to school, improving health and well-being, reducing poverty, and so on. But there are still huge gaps that remain in addressing poverty and huge challenges to come. So over the past couple of decades, for example, the mortality rate of children has fallen by around a half. And that of pregnant women and women giving birth has fallen by 40%. But despite that, 800 women die every day and around 15,000 children die every day. Most of those from conditions that are very easily preventable or should be easily preventable. Global poverty has been falling over the past quarter of a century. But despite that, perhaps a quarter of the world are living on less than $3.20 a day and around 700 million or between 700 and 800 million people are living in absolute poverty on less than $1.90 a day. And we've seen from the impact of COVID that actually poverty rates and those living in absolute poverty are rising already. So it's estimated that perhaps between 100 and 200 million people will be pushed into absolute poverty as a direct result of the COVID pandemic. And of course, the climate emergency is estimated to push maybe another 130, 150 million people into absolute poverty. Last year, around 82 million people were forced from their homes as a result of conflict or instability or natural disasters. And around nine tenths of those are actually hosted in low income countries. So those countries that actually have the least amount of resources to be able to cope with those influxes. We've seen from recent events in Afghanistan and the ongoing crisis in Syria and the large numbers of people who are leaving Venezuela. So those three countries alone accounting for around 43% of all refugees. That there's no indication that the migration crisis is likely to end soon. And regions like the US, like the European Union, countries like the UK, despite having vastly more resources and therefore being much better and able to bring in and cope with the impact of large numbers of migrants and refugees have spent the past decade or so putting up increasing barriers, resisting their moral and perhaps even legal obligations to take on more migrants and to take on those fleeing persecution, violence and instability. So if we look at the global challenges that we're facing as a world, as a global community over, is right now and over the next few years and decades, all of the biggest ones I would suggest are situated within the areas that we look at in the discipline of development studies. And our students are engaged with understanding and thinking about how these huge challenges can be addressed, are being addressed and can be addressed through our program. Thinking about how are people affected and who is being affected? What responses are working or not working? So development studies is the study of firstly how individuals and societies become poor and remain trapped in poverty. Secondly, what does it mean to be poor? What is the experience of poverty and vulnerability? And part of that is thinking about what do we actually mean when we use terms like poverty? How would we define poverty? Thirdly, we look at what the response to poverty and other global challenges is. What is it that international organisations, donors, UN organisations and others are actually doing to address these challenges? How are they trying to or envisaging their role in promoting and supporting development? And then finally, do those policies actually work? Or actually are they making things worse? Are they actually increasing poverty, increasing vulnerability, making some people more vulnerable, even if they're making others less so? And all of this means that development studies is asking some pretty difficult, albeit very important questions. Firstly, what is development? What do we actually mean by that term? How do societies change and how should they change? And I'm going to come back to that a little bit later in this talk. Why have some countries and some regions developed and not others? And who defines whether a country or a region has developed? What policies and programmes and structures can help make that change happen? Which actors are better at doing certain kinds of development than others? And then finally, is development actually a good thing? Now, of course, this sounds like a really strange question. But if our conclusion is that what is happening under the name of development is actually causing more harm, then maybe we need to rethink this idea that development as is currently understood and currently implemented is actually a good thing. And there are many people who would argue that it isn't. So development studies looks at all of these, looks at these various arguments, looks for evidence for each and then helps you make up your mind about what you think development is, what you think development should be and how good change can be brought about. And I want to emphasise this about supporting you in developing your own thinking and your own learning. There are no easy answers this if there was a simple answer. If everyone agreed what the right policy was, there wouldn't be a need for development studies programmes. There wouldn't be a need for development organisations. It would have been sorted. The point is these are really difficult, complex questions and you need to understand why you think the things that you do, what is the evidence base for your understanding of what you think should be done and what you think your role should be within pushing that global good change. So development studies is interdisciplinary and what I mean by that is that it draws on different academic disciplines. So it draws on history, on politics, on geography, anthropology, sociology, economics and so on. And it does so because we can't understand poverty and vulnerability and conflict and change without looking at it from different perspectives. And so we use those different perspectives to interrogate different claims and to come up with ideas and understandings of policy and approaches. It's a global focus, not just a local focus. So it isn't just about poor countries and poor regions, nor just about policies and institutions in the global north. It looks at the interconnectedness of the world. So as an example, if you think about migration, migration affects, of course, the individuals who are moving from one place to another, perhaps pushed out by war or economic deprivation. So we need to understand the context in which people feel that they're being forced to leave. Of course, it may result from environmental crisis, a crisis which might be caused by both local factors, but also global factors, the failure to address sufficiently the global climate emergency. The experience of migrants also impacts upon the countries that they cross through, as well as those they're seeking to enter. It involves international as well as national laws. It reflects global diplomacy and international relations. So if we want to understand migration, we have to understand the local, what is causing people to leave and how are they doing so? But also the international, what is the broad structural context in which these large shifts and these large scale movements are taking place? So we take both a global focus, but also a highly context wide contextualized local focus when we're thinking about global development. So what about our department? Well, we're one of the top five global departments for the study and research in global development studies. We're quite a diverse department in our makeup. We have around 25 full time members of staff who come from around 10 different countries and we represent a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds from history, anthropology, economics, even engineering. And in that diversity, we very much reflect our students as you almost certainly know from your understanding of SARS, we're an incredibly diverse place in terms of our student body, as well as in terms of our staff profile. All of the teaching staff have experience of working with and working on international and local development organizations, NGOs, trade unions, social movements and civil society and so on. And we're all actively engaged in ongoing policy debates and action. And we bring this expertise, this kind of research embedded, activist embedded knowledge and experience into our teaching. It shapes the things we teach, it takes shapes the way we teach and the things that we think are really important for you to know. So what makes us distinctive in terms of our particular development studies program? As you know, there are several universities that have long standing development studies program and there are a few things that I think make us distinctive in the approach that we take. Firstly, our particular emphasis on studying global development through a very specific geographical lens. So that ties into, I suppose, the broader so as identity, you know, so as is an institution that was created to understand other regions of the world. And we believe our approach is that just because a development policy works in one place doesn't mean that it'll work everywhere. So an intervention, let's say building or improving water supply services, building wells and boreholes in Bangladesh in a small community may have worked really well. That doesn't necessarily mean that if you transplant that program as it is to Cameroon or to Senegal, that it's going to do exactly the same things and work in exactly the same way. If you try and engage with women's groups in Tanzania, for example, you may be able to improve their sustainable livelihoods. You may be able to help empower them and give them a stronger voice within their communities, but you can't simply take everything you did in that particular project and hope that if you then move that and try to implement that somewhere in Southern India, it would have exactly the same effect just because a particular community responds in one way doesn't mean all communities do so. So we have to think about the difference that place and group identity and all different types of context make in shaping development. And so as as an institution and our department as part of so as has that running right through our veins, we think that this is one of the things that makes our students so distinctive in their skills. Employers will know that not only do you have a deep and thorough knowledge about general global development issues and trends and policies and theories and so on, but you also understand how they look different in different parts of Africa and different parts of Asia in Latin America and so on. So you get that deep regional knowledge as well as that thematic issue based knowledge around global development and we help you achieve this by allowing you to take modules from other departments that might be a language. You may choose to look at music from a particular region or a particular country and you can do this in some cases as part of the formal development studies curriculum where we think a module speaks to the core global development themes or as an open option, which is a free choice where you get to decide a topic based on your own interest and what you want to look at. The second thing that I think makes us distinctive is our approach to the fundamental question of what development is and what it should be. Now, I should say at this stage that of course there isn't a single perspective in the department and we certainly don't always agree. We have many different positions and many different arguments across a whole range of things. But generally speaking, we do take a critical perspective on current development, orthodoxies. And what I mean by that is that we look at the policies that are being implemented by donors like what used to be known as DFID in the UK, now the foreign, the Foreign Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Development Office, FCDO. Organisations like the World Bank, various United Nations organisations and we're quite critical of their understanding and the policies they are putting forward. So we challenge perhaps what might be called the neoliberal basis of much orthodox development policy. And we argue for stronger voices. From global south governments and from global south citizens and communities. And the third thing that makes us distinctive is the kind of research that we're doing and the fact that our teaching is linked to and embedded in that research. If you want to look at the kind of research that we're doing in our department, you know, have a look at the website, you can have a look at all of our staff profiles where we list the kind of things that we're working on. So you've got a real sense of what it is that we ourselves are interested in and see how that reflects back in our teaching. But just to give a few examples. So, for example, Laura Hammond has been leading a major global research project looking at migration from the Horn of Africa region, trying to think about what is it that is making people move? Why are people moving? Why are they choosing to go to some places rather than others? And what is the experience of that journey? What routes are they taking? Who is involved in helping people move or helping? Maybe an optimistic word in some case, but some of the smugglers who are who are doing it for money and perhaps being extremely exploitative with a view to thinking about what is it that governments in the European Union and the UK can do to support it, perhaps be less restrictive and to make it less dangerous and less life threatening that journey that many are taking. Jonathan Goodhand, another member of our department is running a really interesting programme looking at the way that the drug trade and other illegal economic activity impacts upon conflict states, public health and livelihoods in Afghanistan, Colombia and Myanmar and Afghanistan. This work, of course, is particularly relevant in Afghanistan, given what's been going on there over summer. Again, the aim being to produce new approaches and policy reforms that can help in post-conflict reconstruction and can try and dampen down some of the instabilities that we have seen erupting. We have a really interesting group within our department called Positive Negatives, and these work in really interesting ways. So they produce comics and animations as well as podcasts that focus on social and humanitarian issues. Particularly around conflict and around migration, refugees and asylum. And they've also been working with other members of the department in finding ways of talking about their own research. So they've been working with Jonathan Goodhand, for example, on his project to try and find ways of educating publics and communities through means other than kind of academic articles. So it's a really interesting way of getting these ideas out to wider audiences. The fourth thing that makes us distinctive is decolonisation. Now, I know the term decolonisation has become extremely political over perhaps the past 12 to 24 months, often used actually as a term of abuse. And in other places, it's become something that the institutions sign up to without necessarily defining what they mean by it. And so as decolonisation means something tangible. We've had colleagues across the university who've been leading on this movement within the UK for many years and have come up with a set of policies about how this actually feeds into our teaching. So what does this actually mean in terms of teaching? So I suppose in its simplest term, it comes down to the idea that it's really important to understand how other people see the world, not to make assumptions that the way we, if you're based in the UK or in Europe, see the world and assume that that is the best way, the only way or the right way to think about global issues and challenges. So it's partly political about trying to give voice to those people who have been historically marginalised and left voiceless by global structures, but also on this understanding that unless we understand how other people see the world will never truly be able to make good change no matter where we are. And I think the reason that this is so important is because one of the things that employers are becoming increasingly interested in, this is across all sectors, is cultural intelligence. People can be taught the basics of how to do various processes. They can be taught how to do the kind of things that any kind of training programme from an employer would offer. But what is much harder to provide evidence of is cultural intelligence. And this is what employers want within our increasingly interconnected and globalised world, understanding the different ways in which different people around the world see the world, see their place in the world and understand events that are going on is really important. So decolonisation, I think, is important for political and equity reasons. But it is also important for building those cultural and intelligent skills that are one of the hallmarks of SOAS Development Study students. And then the final thing that makes us distinctive is SOAS itself. SOAS is a really amazing place to study. There are very, well, I'm not sure there is any place like this anywhere else in the world. It's full of people who are interested in the same kind of things that you are. It's full of people who are interested in the world to the extent that they don't just want to look at international relations and think about how the US or North America engage with the global south. They want to know what kind of engagement is coming from the global south, how the global south is engaging with the world. There are very few places that give such primacy to seeing the world through the lens of Africa and across Asia. And in the case of the Development Studies Department, we also have people who work on Latin America. So we do really do kind of span that global south region. Our library is one of the best libraries in the world for studying Africa and Asia. We have events going on all the time that will be of either direct relevance to Development Studies or just something that will interest you, something you wouldn't see elsewhere. And whereas SOAS is located also makes a difference. So within kind of a square mile, we have London School of Economics, we have UCL, we have the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who are also running events that you can go to, who also have libraries that you can use. We have all the NGOs and other development organisations and organisations you work in some way with, either refugees or climate emergency and so on, who are based in London, which gives you a huge network, a huge range of things to do and organisations to engage with. So again, I think this creates, this makes us distinctive and makes our programme distinctive. What I want to do now is return to this big question that I talked about, just to give you some kind of flavour of how it is we're approaching these questions. And the big one is what is development? In other words, if you were asked to describe development, what it looks like, how you would recognise it when it has taken place, how would you answer? So if anyone wants to come in on that, I'm just going to pause for a second if anyone wants to posit any views on that, you don't have to. If you do, you can either just put your hand up or unmute yourself if you're able to do that or type something into the chat site, chat box. OK, if you don't want to, that's fine. All the only thing I would say here is that I gave an on-campus open day last time and someone came up afterward saying that, you know, she really wish it had the confidence to speak out. But she felt she didn't because she felt that she hadn't studied enough. And as I pointed out, you all have enough, maybe not kind of technical knowledge about development, but you all have enough knowledge of the world to be able to make some comments. So there's some really good things that I can see in the chat site. Oh, OK, you go ahead. Is that Mo? I think you go ahead and speak. Hi, yeah. So, I mean, I think a good part of development or like something that I particularly care about is, you know, like preventing the deaths from like preventable disease, basically, because like if you look around the world, there's plenty of like, you know, like various diseases that in the UK and in other like, you know, I guess more developed parts of the world are more or less gone. But then, you know, you go back to like, like, you know, different countries and then you see like there's like parasites and stuff like that, which are really harmful to people and cause actually really like painful, painful conditions. I think that for me personally, like a good thing for development is, you know, preventing that kind of stuff. So thanks, Mo. I think that's really good. You know, I work on global health as part of my work in the department. So those are themes and topics that are very close to my heart. I'll just pick up some things from the chat box as well. If you haven't discovered the chat box, you can just click it open and you'll see the comments that are being written there. So Esme has talked about it as improving the human beings life. So I guess thinking about a kind of a holistic well-being approach. Shalini's talked about technological developments. And of course, that may well be part of it. I guess the question there is, is the technology and the technological improvement kind of the marker of being developed? Or is it one of the tools that perhaps helps people to become development? So it's not necessarily about the technology. It's about what happens with it. As an example, you can all see I'm wearing glasses, one of the oldest forms of technology there is. The glasses, perhaps, are not the the end point of development is what you can do when you wear them. And, you know, so there are lots of projects, for example, that give spectacles to people who don't see and they can be transformative in their effects. Shalini's also suggested liberating people. Again, something really important about tying in with ideas that lots of development thinkers have mentioned about, I suppose, allowing people to live up to their capabilities. You know, we all have potential and the extent to which we can meet that potential is constrained or liberated by the structures in which we're living. If you're given access to a good education, if you have good health, if you have a secure livelihood, then perhaps we can live up to that potential and become liberated to use that word and not otherwise. And Esme's also put freedom again, so that kind of links into the point that I've just made, but also might be more political. That might kind of make us focus on things like human rights and democracy and what role they play in development. Yeah, thanks, Shalini, using technology to develop. I think that's that's an important point, not only because I've talked in the past to particularly engineers. I don't want to castigate all engineers, but I went to a conference once, once where engineers were presenting their designs and models that they thought would be really useful. And it was very clearly it was all about the product and they hadn't given really sufficient thought to about what might the impact of this product be. Understandably, we all come to things from our different perspectives, but it was quite instructive to see that for that group, often it was the technology that was the primary focus rather than, as you've said, the use to which that technology might be put. And then Atusa has talked about development as being to make less deprivation all around the world. Again, you know, a very long standing view that development is about addressing poverty, I suppose, addressing want and need, giving people enough income, giving people enough food and nutrition and so on. So those are all really good ideas and they're all really important. And I think the main point that I would want to say here is that what this shows is that it's actually an enormously complex question in many ways. It sounds simple when you ask it, but actually it's complex. And there's also no consensus in the answers. And I think again, this is something that's really important to understand because depending on what you and the but it matters because depending on what you think development is and what you think the end game of development is, there are huge implications for what you might prioritize. So, for example, speaking generally, if you ask someone in the World Bank, perhaps they're more likely to talk about the importance of economic growth. If a country has a good economic growth, it can afford to do more things. It can afford to build hospitals. It can afford to provide schools to improve water and sanitation. It can hopefully improve jobs and bring in new jobs to ensure that people have decent works. They would say development is primarily perhaps about economic growth. There are others, though, who would say that actually, no, it's not about economic growth or it's not only about economic growth, but actually you need strong governments who are capable of implementing good reforms and good policies to ensure children can attend school, to ensure that everyone has access to health, to protect human rights and so on. And this isn't something that economic growth alone can do. Some people argue that addressing deprivation or poverty is really important, but others would suggest that actually as important, and perhaps even more so, is the issue of inequality. And that might take you down different directions. And of course, there are divisions between those who argue that the priority must be human poverty and those who argue that actually unless you address the climate emergency first and foremost, you can't address poverty. And then if you follow that on, you think about the implications that follow. So if you think economic growth is perhaps the most important, then you may care less about inequality. You may care less that policies are creating inequality or creating an employment. You may think that bringing in the private sector to run hospitals and schools and so on is important because they can do the job more efficiently or more effectively or quicker. If you think that government is more important and economic growth is less important, you might think that regardless of economic growth, government should be investing in welfare supports. They should regulate the private sector more strongly. They should ensure and guarantee rights to health, rights to food and so on. So you may think that actually we shouldn't focus so much on, I suppose, the neoliberal approach, which is often linked to those pushing for economic growth, but a more statist approach. If you think bottom up development is the most important thing, you may think that actually both states and free markets should have less of a voice than civil society and community priority should guide what happens rather than plans being coming down from above. And if you believe inequality is as big a problem as poverty, you might focus more on redistributive policies that some would argue might limit economic growth, but you might argue reduce inequality and that's more important. So all it matters what you think development is, but it is complicated and there are differences. We many people have a same view on what the end game is kind of overall human well-being, but that's a very generic statement. And it becomes much more difficult when you think in more detailed terms. So thanks for all your contributions. I thought they're really useful, really helpful there. So our programs, both the BA, the full BA program, BA Development Studies, but also our joint programs, BA Development Studies and as it's called, will give you a strong interdisciplinary social science training, gives you skills in how to ask questions, a really important skill to have, especially anyone that can be taken with you throughout your life and not just applied in the world of work, but applied in all aspects of your life, how you engage in society as a citizen. It gives you an understanding of processes of global social change and understanding of the specific issues and challenges in global development and what form they take in different regions, as well as what the responses from global and local development actors are and the extent to which they're working. An understanding of the way that our interconnected globalized world works and an intellectual home and a network, a professional network of those who are working in global development. So we don't tell you what to think. I've mentioned this earlier. What we are doing is we're helping you developers, critical independent thinkers so that you can contribute to debates and changes in formed contributors to make challenges based on expert knowledge rather than just guesswork and understanding of what evidence there is to justify the things that you think should be done. And these are precisely the kind of skills that employers want. But I'd go further than that and say that people should have just as part of their general life skills. Of course, most of our students are looking to work in global development in some capacity, and that's kind of a broad field. So I'm using that as a short term. So people who are wanting to work with, for example, refugee or migrant groups in their own countries, people who want to address issues around violent conflict or violence and crime in their own communities also take our program because the issues that are talked about are not relevant or solely applicable in any one country. They're relevant globally. And a degree in development studies or a related area is seen as increasingly important by employers just given the amount of people who want to work in this sector. So it's a highly competitive sector. So having some kind of academic evidence that you have an understanding of these issues is seen as quite important. But there are a whole range of other careers that our students take out, given the importance and relevance of the whole range of skills in analysis, in critical engagement, in argument, in presentation, in independent learning and independent thinking and so on. They equip you for so many opportunities. So our graduates have gone on to work in a whole range of areas working for NGOs like Save the Children, Oxfam Care International, working for governments and specialised agencies, whether that's in the UK or people working for Japanese aid agencies or South Korea aid agencies or USAID and so on. People who've worked in international organisations like the World Bank, like various United Nations organisations or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. People have gone to work on research institutes and think tanks, kind of taking a, I suppose, a more academic approach, trying to understand and write reports and on policies and think about evidence in a more detailed way. And others have gone on to work outside of development for private sector organisations like investment banks, like risk analysis and so on. And many have also gone on to work in the media using their understanding of the global world and its challenges to inform their journalism. So the point is there isn't a typical destination for our students. They work in sectors and places where they feel comfortable, where they can make the difference that they want to make. And our programmes help you find that role and give you the skills and resources to make a career in that place. So look, have a look at our website in terms of what it is that we're looking for from a kind of an academic perspective. And you can see, no matter kind of what your final school exams are, what we'll tell you what it is we're looking for. But I think more importantly than that, what we're looking for. And I think what characterises a SOAS Development Studies student are people who are motivated, who care about the state of the world and finding their place in addressing the global challenges we collectively face. People who are curious, who are willing to think about new ideas and to have their current views challenged. To maybe change some of the assumptions that they have previously held on the basis of the knowledge and thinking that they're doing and who take a global perspective rather than a national or even a regional one on the challenges that we face today and face tomorrow. So it's our students who make the department what it is. I suppose that's the thing that really makes us distinctive as a department. And we're really proud of our current students and those who graduated from us. So we've gone on to do some amazing things. Our students are really engaged whilst they're studying their campaigning, their demanding change, they're helping us frame what our programmes do. They challenge us, kind of their teachers as much as they do other organisations and quite rightly so. And they take those skills and that knowledge and that passion with them when they finish, when they graduate. And of course, we'd love to have you and people who share those values and that drive and that commitment and motivation to join us so we can help you reach your potential as global change leaders. You'll be able to this is just a slide for how ways to connect us. This is being recorded. So if you don't take all the details, don't worry, you can come back to it. And if you have got any questions that you don't have time to ask now, we've got about 12 minutes for questions. Of course, you can get in touch with me or you can get in touch with any of our staff members. You just look at the website, you've got all of our details on there. So I'm going to take questions now. You can either put them in the box, I'll stop the share. So I don't think we need that anymore. So you can either kind of kind of ask directly or you can put a question in the chat box. And just to reassure you that, you know, there is no question that you should feel you can't ask. Everyone will probably be thinking exactly the same question as well. So does anyone have any questions about our programmes? Anything that I've raised? Anything you would like to know a little bit more about? OK, so as me in the chat box is asking what we look for in personal statements. I think what we're looking for is evidence that backs up your interest. Now, why have you applied to our programme? Now, that doesn't mean that we're expecting you to have done huge amounts. Some of you may have volunteering experience. Some of you may be able to talk about those kind of things. And if you have any of that kind of experience, if you've done any volunteering, if you've done any trips to places, if you've worked on anything that is relevant, please do put that in. But many probably most don't. But I think what we want is some kind of indication of why you've chosen this programme. Why is it? What is it about development studies or development studies? And if it's a joint programme that has brought you to it. So, you know, it might be that you talked about global poverty in a particular class and that sparked your interest. It may be your background. Maybe you come from, you know, maybe you're the second generation and your parents or perhaps even your grandparents were either migrants or perhaps even refugees. And because you've known that, that makes a difference. So it's about just giving us some kind of indication of why you're interested in global development, why you've chosen this particular programme. Don't worry too much about it. You know, we're not kind of expecting a huge CV, but just some kind of indication. So how many students do you get taking this course? Usually Ron has asked. So because we have two programmes, we actually have around sixty two students. All right, we have six. So it varies between, let's say, fifty five and sixty five students each year. Sometimes it goes up and but not all of those students are taking the full programme. So some of those students are kind of taking, let's say, for example, development studies and politics. So half of them exists in our department and the other half exists in another department. And again, it varies. Our full B.A. programme is relatively new, so we don't kind of have any long term trends, but it tends to be about half and half. And then, yeah, so hopefully that answers that question. And if I haven't answered a question, do come back to me. I can follow up again. Atusa has asked if we have any special programmes for physicians. So as is a social science, arts and humanities institution. So we have no programmes outside of those disciplines. So, you know, we don't teach on health, you know, so if we look at health, we're looking at it from a social science or humanities perspective. So we don't have medical programmes. We don't engage with the other STEM sciences. If you're interested in that, then, yeah, you'd need to go to an institution. You'd need to look at an institution that had a medical programme. Are there any other questions? So as I say, I've got quite a lot going on on my screen. So if you've got your virtual hand up and I've missed it, do feel free just to jump in. Whilst I just wait for questions just to say, look, if you if you what can be really useful for you is if you go and look at our so if you go to our Development Studies website, just follow the various links. The easiest way is just to do so as. Yeah, so just before I go, yeah, two seven, that's it. Yeah, we don't we don't teach. We don't teach medical science. So we don't have any programmes like that, I'm afraid. So if you go to, you know, if you just Google so as development studies, it will take you to us. And then you can click on the degree programme. And that will tell you exactly what modules you study as part of the programme. Now, if you're interested in a joint degree, obviously. The Development Studies website only talks about the development studies part of your degree. So you would need to go to the other department to look at what the structure for that part of the degree looks like. And you can click on the modules and you can actually see what is taught in each of those modules. So actually got two questions about that. So Shalini is asking how rigid is studying the programme or can you explore others such as politics or economics at the same time as development? So in reference to that, if you wanted to do you could do a joint degree, so you could do development studies and politics, or you could do development studies and economics. Or if you're doing the full development programme, there are economics modules and there are politics modules. There are also anthropology modules that we allow you to take and we consider them development studies modules. So, yes, you can kind of explore other disciplines and other modules as part of your degree. And then this links onto the second question, which is the open options. Because one thing that so as also does now, this is more for the people who are doing of not doing a joint degree. If you're doing a joint degree, it is much more constrained because effectively you have to fit in both subjects as part of your degree. So you have less flexibility and less access to open options. If you're doing a full degree, so if you're doing the BA development studies or if you're doing any of the other full degrees across so as as part of the programme, you can do an open option. It's for things like languages, it might look a little different. So if you're you need to go and look at that if other other structures. But if you look at our structure, you'll see that you can take an open option each year and as part of that, you can pick from any of the options that are made available under this scheme. And it doesn't have to relate to the actual subject of your degree. So it could be it could do, but it doesn't have to. So lots of people, for example, lots of undergraduates take a language option so they can develop skills in an African or an Asian language. Others will do something that might just be interesting them like music is actually surprisingly common because it's one of those things that they won't be able to study anywhere else, or they might want to do something in art or something in politics and so on. So we give you that opportunity to develop either a regional expertise or an interest on top of the programme. So you can see all of those details on the structure. Have I missed a question? I mean, I think one thing to bear in mind is that, you know, as you would have seen just by looking at our website or if you've been to so as itself, we're a small university, you know, we're not kind of a large university like Manchester or Sussex or even UCL next door. We're a very small university. In fact, our whole institution for one of these giant universities would be about the size of one of their faculties. And this means that we're actually, you know, a fairly united although we have different departments and we have our different identities. Our students will almost certainly be taking modules in other departments, their friends will be in other departments. The events will be co-organised and co-created as as as academics there. We work with each other. We don't have these kind of hard boundaries. So actually, unlike many other universities, kind of so as does feel like a single place. So you, of course, you will have your departmental identity, but many of our students, you know, they're so as identity is just as important. And it's the kind of place where you can get to know kind of everyone in your year if you want to, not just those who are on your particular programme. I think we've probably got time for one more question if anyone has anything. If you don't, as I say, you know, you've got all of our contact details. You can either come directly to me or you can come through the recruitment team and we'll answer anything that you might have. But if there aren't any more questions, I hope you really enjoy the rest of this virtual open day. And if it's possible for you to come to us at some point, perhaps when things get a little bit easier, I really would recommend that it's it's a it's a really amazing place to study. It's an amazing place to work and it has an atmosphere. You know, I've worked in quite a few universities, but it has an atmosphere that is unlike any other. And as someone who studied at SOAS as well, a long, long time ago, you know, it really is a fantastic place. So thanks, everyone. Do get in touch if you have any other questions. Otherwise, good luck making your choices and good luck getting through the rest of this academic year. Thanks, everyone.