The Teaching Technician Team
The Life Science teaching technical teams recently delivered a second successful WEX Programme which had over 150 applications for just four places. Students applied for a week of activities including two days with technicians in Chemistry and two with Biosciences. Senior Technicians Anna Farlow and En King put the students through their paces completing risk assessments, CoSHH and a variety of activities to boost their skills and understanding of the technical roles as well as life at University.
One student said they found '...spending time in the different departments and finding out more about what it’s like to do a science based degree at university' was valuable as was 'The chance to talk to people who have done chemistry-based degrees and to see how that has led them to the jobs they are doing now.'
Another said 'I really enjoyed all five days — the sessions were engaging, and the hands-on lab work was both exciting and educational. I’m especially grateful for the guidance and support from the technicians and the university staff who led our sessions. Their clear explanations and encouragement made a real difference and helped me understand the experiments more deeply.'
This year, Life Science researchers also joined in by hosting students in their chosen areas of interest for a day. Thanks to Dr Ethan Morgan, Dr Ben Towler and Dr Haitham Hassan for their participation. The students were positive in their feedback, 'It was so nice to talk to the researchers and PhD students about what they were doing as they were all so enthusiastic about their work and were happy to explain it to me.'
We are planning on running the WEX Programme again next year so please let the team at lifesci-workexp@sussex.ac.uk know if you are interested in hosting a student for the research day.
If any school students you know would like to apply for the WEX Programme, the applications will go live again around October on the Work Experience page under Public Engagement. Other internal and external application routes for Work Experience can also be found on this page.
Technician Networking for a local College
The teaching technicians hosted a local Haywards Heath College technician for the day. Chemistry and Biosciences teams explained the way their systems and processes work and how they could be applied to college level delivery of sessions. Some of our own team have experience delivering in schools and colleges and understand the difficulties that entails. The visiting technician was enthusiastic and is keen to implement actions in their own work place and return to see the processes in action when the students are on campus.
Dr Robert Fowler, Associate Director of Technical Operations said that 'Technicians are vital for the safe, effective, and efficient delivery of research and practical teaching' and is keen for the technicians to network not only with other university technicians through the Technician Commitment activities that are organised but also within the local community so schools and colleges become even more aware of the University of Sussex through different routes. Such interactions can also help highlight technical career pathways from school posts through to higher education.