 So, my name is Robin Kearney. I am what they call lead on the foundation year, especially for student experience. In other words, I look after making sure that learning, teaching and the student experience of the foundation year is great for the whole year. I've also been teaching and so has since 2005 and before I started working on the foundation year, I was working on the international foundation programs and then also working, supporting students who are studying their degrees or master's degrees. And so as with things like study skills, research skills, all the kind of different things you need to know to be a successful student. And then for the last two years, I've been working on the foundation year, really since the start, since it began in September of 2019. I have a nice photo of SOAS on the front of my PowerPoint, just in case you haven't had a chance to visit in person. You can see on the right of the photograph is what we call the SOAS main building. To the left is the Brunei building, but there's also an art gallery in the Japanese roof garden. And beyond that, you can't quite see it, although you could always Google it because it's an amazing building. It is Senate House and we have a large wing of Senate House at the University of London. And I wanted to start with a photograph of SOAS because I think one way that SOAS is different to most universities is its location. It's right in the centre of London, in an area called Bloomsbury, which has a lot of history, especially with respect to education, art and literature. And even though in this photograph, the university looks very quiet, I think one of the great things about SOAS is the sense of community. It really feels like a village. And if you were here now, and especially if you were here in a normal, non-COVID affected year, it's a really bustling, exciting, vibrant place to be. Okay, so let me just move on now to have a look at SOAS in general. If you have the prospectus and you can get it very easily online, if you don't have it now, just search SOAS undergraduate prospectus. You'll get a more KERA overview of why SOAS is an outstanding university. And it's not just that it has a great reputation in Britain, it has a great reputation globally. It has an international reputation for academic excellence, a really international feel on campus, not only in terms of the student cohort, but also in terms of the teaching and academic cohort. SOAS students are generally the type of person who is very passionate about global issues and contemporary world issues. And you will find studying in SOAS that you have a huge range of options on what you study, many of them not so available in other universities in the UK. And you'll also find that you have a great range of combinations that you know. So maybe you're interested in law, but also in Korean language, you can make a combination there. Maybe you're interested in development studies, but also in South Asian art, you can probably make a degree combination there. And another advantage of studying at SOAS is the connections we have with the rest of the world. And 40% of undergraduate programs offer the opportunity to spend the year studying in another country. Okay, so let's move on just to have a little look at the reasons that SOAS is so well regarded academically. And you'll see that SOAS is ranked in the top 150 universities in the world for social sciences. So social sciences are subjects like anthropology, cultural studies, development studies, economics, top 50 in the world for arts and humanities. And that might be of particularly interest, in particular interest to you if you have an interest in other regions of the world, like Africa, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, and art and literature from those areas. It's ranked fifth in the UK for graduate employability, 12th in the UK for economics for course quality, fifth in the world for development studies, 16th in the world for anthropology. This isn't just for Britain, this is for the world, 21st in the world for politics, history in the top 50 in the world. So this isn't just a university with a national reputation, it has a really strong international reputation. Okay, I'll move on now to tell you a little bit more about the foundation year itself. So the aim of the foundation year is to try to help to prepare students for entry onto an undergraduate program at SOAS. And really to try to help them excel on undergraduate programs in SOAS. So it's trying to equip you with all the skills and knowledge you need to have an outstanding experience as an undergraduate on a degree here. We have modules on the foundation year on academic practice, working with numbers, digital skills and technology, topical global issues and cultural fluency. So really you're being introduced to different academic skills you'll need and different academic disciplines taught in SOAS. And I'll give you a deeper overview or a more caress summary of those different modules just in one minute. So we have two foundation year pathways or two options for you if you want to study a foundation year in SOAS. So these are called a BA or so a Bachelor in Arts or a Bachelor in Science in Business Management Economics and Law or a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. So in other words we have two pathways tailored towards the type of degree you want to take after the foundation. You might notice that these these pathways are not called foundation year they're called a BA or a BSC because once you're accepted onto the foundation year you're accepted onto a four-year degree. So your first year of that degree is the foundation year and then once you pass the foundation year you can go on to any degree in SOAS. So the foundation year is not a standalone qualification. When you finish the foundation year you don't need to go and apply to UCAS again. Once you're accepted onto the foundation year you are on a degree in SOAS. It's just that that first year is a foundation year where you build academic skills and academic knowledge and then maybe in April or sometime in turn two of the foundation year you then make a decision about what degree in SOAS you want to study whether it's law, Korean, anthropology, development studies etc and then you go on to that degree once you pass the foundation year. It's that simple. So now let me just give you a quick overview or a more in-depth overview from the introduction I just gave of what you would be studying on the different modules on the foundation year. So depending on which pathway you choose you'll either study introduction to social sciences arts and humanities as a module or introduction to business management economics and all as a module and these modules continue all year so you study these modules in term one, term two and the first weeks of term three. The other core module that you'll be studying all year is academic practice and then you'll also be studying for one term the world from SOAS for one term the cultural fluency for one term digital skills and technology and for one term numbers and quantum reasoning. I'll explain in more depth now what they are. So the introduction to social sciences arts and humanities module really tries to introduce you to the key concepts, theories, debates and issues that you'll need to be familiar with to succeed on any social sciences arts and humanities course in SOAS. The first term is really an introduction to key ideas and concepts and then in the second term each lecture deals with a different social science arts or humanities subject that we teach in SOAS. So maybe the first week of term two would be a lecture introducing you to how we study history in SOAS and then week two an introduction to what you would be studying if you took global liberal rights in SOAS. So in that way it really gives you an overview of what you need to know as a kind of foundation for excelling out of social sciences arts and humanities subject in SOAS but then also gives you a really clear overview of what to expect on those degrees. Okay and then on the other side you might choose the business management economics and law pathway in which case your introduction to business management economics and law module would try to introduce you to the key theories, ideas, concepts and issues you or it certainly will be helpful for you to be familiar with if you are planning to go on and study management economics finance or law in SOAS. And while these different subjects will be dealt with in categories so we start with business and then move on to management and then on to economics and then on to law the whole year is cohesive and shows how these different subjects relate to each other, how an understanding of management or certainly an understanding of law could aid you to have a deeper understanding of management or an understanding of economics can help you to have a stronger grasp on business and business studies. So students develop a broad understanding of each discipline but they also see how each discipline relates to the others. As I said academic practice continues throughout the year and this is a core module which really does aim to help you to develop the academic skills you'll need to be an understanding and outstanding undergraduate. I think when students arrive in university they often don't anticipate how different the types of skills you'll need to succeed are compared to secondary school or high school or college and you might find that students who already maybe have family who've been to college or sorry who've been to university or friends who've been to university and in the UK have a great advantage because they understand what's expected. So academic practice really aims to give you an overview of what's expected in terms of the type of study you'll be doing in university and the type of assessments and academic practice really does try to train you in all the skills you need to perform really well at the type of assignments we do in SOAS which includes academic essays, academic presentations, reports, reflective writing and then in terms too on academic practice the assessment is an independent study project where you take those skills that you've learned in academic practice and you get to apply them to an academic debate issue or problem of your choosing so it's really like a micro dissertation where in term one we introduce the different skills you'll need to be an amazing student and then you get to apply them to a subject that really interests you. Most students probably would even go as far as say nearly all students have found this really fulfilling and really great preparation for their degree. Okay only four modules to go. Next one is computer the world from SOAS in term one there's a module called the world from SOAS it's quite a vague or abstract name for a module but most students by the end of the term find this to be their favorite module but the world from SOAS is really trying to do is to introduce students to key issues and debates that SOAS generally will take an interest in and to approach those issues and debates from a global perspective. So if you're interested in politics, economics, even literature, development, anthropology, cultural studies and you've studied these subjects previously it's probably been from quite an Anglo-centric or at least Euro-centric perspective. So if you've looked if for example you took A-level politics I imagine that the majority of the key thinkers you read were British, French, German or American and politics and world politics were understood through that lens but in the world from SOAS we try and look at different disciplines and their different interests and the issues debates and problems that they might engage with and look at them from a global perspective so it really challenges students to reassess their assumptions of why the modern world is the way it is and students have found this lays a really strong foundation for understanding different academic subjects and disciplines that we study in SOAS and then cultural fluency takes a similarly global approach but what it's looking at here is really the types of academic theories and concepts we might use as university students so a lot of the time in undergraduate studies what we're doing is taking theories and concepts and then applying them to case studies or applying them to the real world so having a basis or a grounding in academic theory is hugely useful. I think one of the reasons cultural fluency has been so popular and so successful as a module is that students are introduced to these theories and concepts but then in the assignments and in classwork get to apply academic theory and concepts to the issues that they are really interested in so for example the first assessment in cultural fluency is a presentation where students take post-colonial or anti-colonial theory and apply it to their own secondary school or college education so they ask themselves for example to what extent their literature A-levels or psychology A-levels or economics A-levels were reproducing a worldview that was particularly white, anglo-centric, euro-centric or maybe through a very masculine worldview and what the alternatives might have been so the whole point is that although this is academic theory we're really showing how useful this theory can be for understanding your own life and the context and background that you came to university from well it puts it quite well sorry it puts it quite well in the PowerPoint there and encourages students to engage critically with their own experiences and environments while applying academic theory to debates and issues that are personally relevant that sums it up pretty well I think numbers and quantitative reasoning has a horrible name if you ask me as someone who doesn't like mathematics but this is not a maths module this is a module which aims to try to help students to build the skills needed to develop academic arguments using evidence and data and to understand and analyze the arguments of others who use numbers and data to support their arguments obviously in the academic world when you're writing essays or assignments you're trying to develop an argument and the best way to make your argument persuasive is to use evidence and generally the strongest type of evidence you can use and particularly in social sciences economics and business subjects is to use data numbers because they feel like hard fact so this module really aims to try to help you use data to support your arguments and to understand how data is used in constructing arguments in general if you're planning to go on to study economics business finance obviously you can see how this module could be essential for you but social sciences students have also found this hugely helpful in relation to the type of reading they need to do with social sciences students and in terms of developing their own arguments in assignments digital skills and technology was originally designed as a module which had more of a focus on apologies about that it appears that Robin may have just dropped out of Zoom I suspect it might be due to his connection so hopefully he'll be able to rejoin the session but just to say if you do have any questions so far you're welcome to put them into the chat box and we can answer those questions for you and hopefully you're finding it to be a very informative session I can see that Robin has just rejoined which is great so we'll hand back to you Robin. Sorry about that everyone the internet just cut out I mean the I mean a corner of the SOAS library that's one of my offices and sometimes it doesn't have very good reception okay so you can hear me again hopefully let me get the PowerPoint going again okay so we were looking at the world from SOAS numbers and quantitative reasoning and then digital skills and technology so I'm not sure where I cut out did we get to digital skills and technology Amy and Sakena can you remember? Did you still hear me? Yeah we can still hear you and I think you had we're still on the numbers and quantum. Numbers and quantum reasoning okay so I was just saying I was just saying with numbers and quantum reasoning how helpful it can really be it's not just helpful it's really essential for students planning to study economics finance or any business subject looking forward but social sciences students have also found it really helpful in terms of analyzing the research of others and learning the skills they need to produce really strong arguments moving on then to digital skills and technology which was originally designed as a module that was more focused on giving you skills you might need in the workplace so each week on digital skills and technology you'll focus on building a different skill so maybe in week two producing a podcast week three maybe editing a video week four producing a web page so that even if you know how to maybe do the skill focused on in week three you might not in week four so there's a real range of really useful skills taught and digital skills and technology the assessment is a portfolio so for the portfolio you really do take these skills and put them into practice to produce a portfolio of your own work and all of the different tasks there's a lot of freedom with the different tasks that you can do so for example designing your own web page or producing and editing your own video so all this is hugely helpful obviously in relation to your future careers in the workplace but the two guys who designed and teach digital skills and technology Michael Andrew have also made this course very academically relevant because through learning to do these skills there's also a lot of reflection on their relevance to different academic problems and issues and this is I think a really fulfilling and exciting module and one that you won't find in other universities I think it's very much ahead of the curve okay so they're the different modules you would be studying on the foundation year just go over them again we have two introductory modules introduction to business management economics and law or introduction to social sciences arts and humanities you'll also be studying academic practice throughout the year and then in term one there's the world from SOAS followed in term two by cultural fluency and then in term one there is digital skills and technology followed in term two by numbers and quantities now another reason the foundation year I think is outstanding as an experience in itself but also as preparation for university study is the range of different assessments the assessments are designed in a way that should be really personally engaging and interesting for all students and that really takes into account the different backgrounds that students come to the foundation year from but it's also excellent preparation for the type of assessments you'll be doing as an undergraduate so hopefully you have a huge head start on other students in first year when you progress on to your degree because you'll already know what's expected of a really high level academic essay or academic presentation or reflective evaluation journal and as I mentioned it before but it's worth restating because it's such a great assessment the independent study project really is an opportunity to follow your own interests by researching on a subject or topic that's really engaging for you I mentioned this before but don't forget that students who pass the foundation year can progress onto any other undergraduate program in the university so you automatically go on to law development studies, cultural studies, global liberal arts, anthropology, Korean, Japanese, South Asian arts once you pass the foundation year you choose at the end of foundation year which degree you want to take and once you pass you go on to it and foundation year students are SOAS students you are on a SOAS degree once you're on the foundation year so you should have access to all the benefits services and facilities available to undergraduate students for example you become a member of the students union if you haven't had a chance to google SOAS students union I would say it's a great idea it's a really vibrant students union the range of different societies and clubs is outstanding so that might be worth having a look at after this very quick lecture the foundation year only began in 2019 which meant that first group of foundation year students completed the foundation year in 2020 and went on to be first year SOAS students in 2020-21 so this summer we got the first results from the end of first year of the group who had been in the foundation year the previous year and the data across the board showed that foundation year students were doing as well or almost as well as students who had entered those degrees with direct entry for nearly all courses and on some courses like finance for example students who have taken the foundation year were performing better we're getting higher results than students who had gone out to finance with direct entry and if you have a look at the SOAS undergraduate perspective prospectus you'll see that SOAS has very high direct entry requirements so if you wanted to study law or economics or finance and SOAS to enter directly you probably need an AAAB in your A levels so the point I'm making here is that the foundation year or the data we're getting back is telling us that the foundation year really is effective for preparing students for undergraduate study who would the foundation year suit how would you know the foundation year is right for you well if you're a student who might have been out of education for a while maybe you left school early or a long time ago and now wants to return to education then the foundation year could be a really good bridge back into a serious full-time study for you for any student who feels that they would just need a little bit more time to build their academic skills and academic knowledge before going on to their degree then the foundation year could really suit you if you're an ambitious student who isn't quite sure what they want to do in the future or what path they'd like to take what degree really interests them then the foundation year would give you an opportunity to learn more about academic study and the different disciplines we study in SOAS while at the same time building your knowledge and skills and the foundation year obviously attracts students who really want to study in SOAS but might have just missed the requirements for direct entry and then the foundation year should first of all give those students the opportunity to study in SOAS but also then to really improve their skills so that when they do go on to their degree they can excel okay so that is me certainly run out of breath and my short presentation over but if you have any questions I'd love to hear them. So Kina and Alice oh sorry it's not so Kina Alice and Nato did any of that make sense? Oh yeah thank you okay Nato did any of that make sense? Yeah thank you so much yeah I am a son you're an exclamation yeah okay it's really hard to know when you're lecturing online and can't see people if you're talking nonsense or not so okay any questions Alice? I think there might be a question from Jenny in the chat actually okay sorry I didn't have the chat open. Hi Jenny what are the entry requirements for foundation year? The entry requirements for foundation year are CCC at A level if you are from a widening participation background we might consider consider you if you slightly lower marks during clearing yeah but the standard is CCC for a short entry on the foundation is that okay so Jenny any other any other questions Nato and Alice? Yeah I'm fine thank you so much for your explanation okay great my pleasure Alice any thoughts? Yeah I actually do have a question. Oh great okay I was going to ask do would you say that it was essential to be based in London to do the foundation course or would it be possible to travel in if you live kind of within an hour from the campus? Yeah so we would have a lot of students who are traveling an hour each way and a lot of staff who are traveling much further than that but you'd need to be aware that a university timetable is usually not a regular nine to five timetable in terms of seminars and lectures so you might for example have one lecture at nine on a Monday morning and nothing else on that day and then a seminar at 11 on Tuesday and a seminar at three on Thursday or in other words on your timetable on the foundation year you'll have about 10 or 11 hours of contact time and that really means lecture and seminar time but you'll also need to give yourself plenty of time to use the library to be doing your own reading and to be preparing for assignments okay that sounds good so it's not like it's quite full on it's a full-time course isn't it it's not you can't it's a full-time course but there's some flexibility within that timetable okay okay that's interesting thank you you're welcome okay anything else I don't think so that's all my questions okay great Jenny anything else okay well thanks so much for coming today if you do have any questions please do write to us I'm going to put it in the chat foundation so you could also have a look at the SOAS foundation year website maybe some of the information you need is there but if you've any questions at all please don't hesitate to contact us at foundationandsoas.ac.uk even if you don't take the foundation year hopefully we'll see you in SOAS next year okay thanks a lot for coming thanks also to Sakina and Amy and hopefully see you guys in September or October of 2022