Students attended Teentech Festival at Roehampton University.

Students were welcomed and given an introduction by Maggie Philbin. The introduction included an interactive anonymous poll asking students for their opinions on a range of technologies and advancements. 

They were then taken to an Insight Zone with 16 companies running interactive activities. Lime students were allocated sessions with the National Physical Laboratory, Academy Sports Conditioning and Amazon Web Services. Students enjoyed learning about what these companies did and the various career pathways offered. Students were given the opportunity to freely interact with the other companies, which included:

• Guys & St Thomas NHS Trust and NHS England
• Met Police Cyber Crime Unit
• Willmott Dixon
• NPL Roehampton University
• NHS Estates
• Computing Education Roehampton University
• Queen Mary University of London
• Law School Roehampton University
• Simply Business
• E-Sports Roehampton University
• Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers British Army
• Arup

After this session students were taken to the Challenge Zone. We were allocated a session with Softwire, a digital engineering company. Students engaged in a coding tutorial session and practised some digital design.

Students moved on to a 'Space Session' with Dallas Campbell, who, other than being a television star, is an author, speaker and ambassador for STEM education. Students found the session interesting and inspiring. There was a live-action experiment performed on stage, which surprised both students and staff!

After lunch, students were tasked with creating an innovation with the aim of making improvements to the NHS. Our students formulated a concept which would ease the waiting times in Accident and Emergency Departments which impressed the volunteers and officials of the festival. They may be invited back to the university in November to pitch the idea to NHS representatives. Watch this space! 

Evaluation of event

100% of students strongly agreed that:

• they found the activity interesting.
• they enjoyed the activity.
• they understood the activity.
• they would recommend this activity to others.
• they would attend other activities like this one.

100% of students agreed that:

• the information provided would be useful to them.
• they understand more about careers and destinations available to them.

Student comments

'I liked the jumping activity the most'.

'I enjoyed the different sessions and the fact that they were all informative and engaging'.

'I enjoyed that it was full of shows and different things that you can do'.