Bradford Academy Student Spotlight – York St John Taster Day

On the 4th of July, a group of students and I went to York St John’s University for a taster session in Politics and English and a brief Campus Tour. The entire experience was something that I enjoyed immensely, and has helped in my decision to further pursue English and writing.

When we arrived, we were taken by the student ambassadors to our first session that day. We were introduced to a lecturer and he told us more about what the English course at York St John University offered and more about the University itself, which benefited me greatly as York St John’s is one of my choices for University.

After, we went on a campus tour and learned more about the Student Union and facilities that were available to us, like being able to ask the university with help for employment after leaving. We also toured the library. The facilities of the library were definitely the most interesting, as it had an area for students to relax and a system allowing you to order books that the library didn’t have stocked.

Then we went to a taster session for English, where we discussed Vampirism and its links to disease, theorising the many ways vampirism was mistaken for illnesses like Malaria, and we talked about the history behind vampirism and how we could link it to the changes we see in a modern day view of vampires in the media. This was both interesting and a lot of fun, as we got to see the different ways that literature and English blend in with history and other subjects.

After lunch, we were in a Politics taster session, where we discussed the reasons why people obeyed the law and whether or not the government was necessary. Although a difficult and controversial topic, we learned a lot on how politics plays itself into our daily lives and the importance of government. We used a lot of hypothetical situations, such as, ‘what would happen if there was no government/legal system?’ Often, the answer would lead to some other form of power and rule system eventually forming.

After this session, we returned to school. It was a great experience and helped me to see exactly what kind of courses I would be interested in doing in the future.

Ayesha Ahmed

Year 13, Bradford Academy