STORYTIME PART 1:Arkwright Scolarship
Welcome back to the blog everyone. I hope you're all having a great new year so far, and your new years resolutions have not flopped (yet).
This is a bit of a Storytime (ooh I feel like a youtuber) so grab your teas, grab your biscuits and gather round the table kids.
Honestly this story was long overdue, and part of the reason why it took me so long to even publish it on the blog was that I wasn't sure if I would even be in a position where I would be willing to even tell the story, and if there would be good news at the end of it, but fortunately there was, and as you can see, clearly I have something to say.
So... in year 10 was the first time I'd ever heard about an Arkwright Scholarship. We were at parents evening and my maths teacher (shout out Mrs Key whoop whoop) asked me what I would want to do to in the future. My mum was there obviously, and she, much like my dad and other relatives wanted me to be a doctor - but here's the thing: I hate anything that is vaguely gory and I'm not great with blood, so perhaps being a doctor wouldn't have been right for me. However, I'd been doing coding and I was enjoying it, and I knew I wanted to be able to apply my coding skills to my future career. So I told her I wanted to be an engineer. She then suggested that I sign up for an Arkwright Scholarship, which would sponsor me in sixth form to do any Engineering related activities. The idea at the time seemed very alien to me, and not something that would have ever become a reality, but I told her that I was interested in it, and I would see where it led.
Fast forward to year 11, mocks are starting, GCSEs were approaching and I had given what I wanted to be a little bit more thought. I knew by then that I definitely wanted to do engineering within its software/electronics realm, and really wanted to try out the Arkwright Scholarship, so I let my teacher know I was still interested, From there, I taught myself about the properties of different materials used in small-scale building projects, their pros and cons, and I tried to practice how I would create devices that would solve simple problems. This could be anything from how I would design a hairdryer, to how I would code an algorithm to solve a problem. In hind-site I should have probably been revising for my impending mocks, but at the time, gaining this opportunity was all that mattered.
The selection stage for the scholarship involved an online application which I worked on with my CS teacher (SHOUT OUT MR W WHOOP WHOOP!!) and I remember getting to bits that asked you to describe your achievements and feeling really awkward having to basically "gas myself up". However it was a very useful experience that taught me the gift of succinctness. I was also thinking of a project to do, which was something that had me terrified, considering that I basically had no engineering experience or knowledge. So yet again, although I had English exams coming up very shortly, I was in my room learning how to wire LEDs in parallel on a breadboard, where I slotted the SD card, and surprisingly, stitching became a very important skillset. My final project was a stress detector (I should have a previous post on it, if not, one should be coming out shortly), which I also briefly described in my application.
Then we had an exam that tested our actual engineering ability, and I was obviously quaking. I'm not sure how much I can actually disclose about the paper, because at the time info was classified, so I won't go into too much detail about the questions, but I did the paper, and I left with a lukewarm feeling. It was by no means a bad paper, but I was uncertain of how it would pan out.
And then one chemistry lesson I felt my phone buzz, and against the rules, I checked, and found I had got through to the interview stage at Cambridge. Folks I was, for lack of a better word, shookt. SHOOKT CHILE. A whole me. Interview!!! So yeah I was gassed!!!! As was my mum, who was growing to like the concept of the £600 funds.
My school was on it like a car bonnet with the interview preparations. They helped me with my answering technique, how to sit, what sounding okay, and what could be misconstrued. By the time interviews rolled around I was readyyyyyy.
Or so I thought. My mum and I rolled into Cambridge with the Toyota, and she of course was praying (if any of you are Nigerian, you know how mum's pray. It was THAT sort of prayer, if you know what I mean). It was intermittently rainy and sunny, and I didn't know if that was an omen or not. We got to the Dyson Centre (beautiful may I add) and when I got in, the first thing I saw was some toy plane that somebody had built. I sat down next to a guy who had built a toy car, and had a journal logging 12 other projects. Behind me was a girl who had made a miniature bookshelf. And in front of me somebody had coded what seemed to be a game that was running on a computer monitor. So to answer your unasked question, yes, I was feeling a teeny bit inadequate with my measly stress detector.
Touring round the centre did ease my mind, and really solidify my interest in engineering, There was so much that I didn't understand, and in a way that was almost great, because I wanted to know it. It wasn't the sort of lack of understanding where you dont even care that you dont understand. I wanted to know what things meant, and someday master the subject.
PART 2 SOON
This is a bit of a Storytime (ooh I feel like a youtuber) so grab your teas, grab your biscuits and gather round the table kids.
Honestly this story was long overdue, and part of the reason why it took me so long to even publish it on the blog was that I wasn't sure if I would even be in a position where I would be willing to even tell the story, and if there would be good news at the end of it, but fortunately there was, and as you can see, clearly I have something to say.
So... in year 10 was the first time I'd ever heard about an Arkwright Scholarship. We were at parents evening and my maths teacher (shout out Mrs Key whoop whoop) asked me what I would want to do to in the future. My mum was there obviously, and she, much like my dad and other relatives wanted me to be a doctor - but here's the thing: I hate anything that is vaguely gory and I'm not great with blood, so perhaps being a doctor wouldn't have been right for me. However, I'd been doing coding and I was enjoying it, and I knew I wanted to be able to apply my coding skills to my future career. So I told her I wanted to be an engineer. She then suggested that I sign up for an Arkwright Scholarship, which would sponsor me in sixth form to do any Engineering related activities. The idea at the time seemed very alien to me, and not something that would have ever become a reality, but I told her that I was interested in it, and I would see where it led.
Fast forward to year 11, mocks are starting, GCSEs were approaching and I had given what I wanted to be a little bit more thought. I knew by then that I definitely wanted to do engineering within its software/electronics realm, and really wanted to try out the Arkwright Scholarship, so I let my teacher know I was still interested, From there, I taught myself about the properties of different materials used in small-scale building projects, their pros and cons, and I tried to practice how I would create devices that would solve simple problems. This could be anything from how I would design a hairdryer, to how I would code an algorithm to solve a problem. In hind-site I should have probably been revising for my impending mocks, but at the time, gaining this opportunity was all that mattered.
The selection stage for the scholarship involved an online application which I worked on with my CS teacher (SHOUT OUT MR W WHOOP WHOOP!!) and I remember getting to bits that asked you to describe your achievements and feeling really awkward having to basically "gas myself up". However it was a very useful experience that taught me the gift of succinctness. I was also thinking of a project to do, which was something that had me terrified, considering that I basically had no engineering experience or knowledge. So yet again, although I had English exams coming up very shortly, I was in my room learning how to wire LEDs in parallel on a breadboard, where I slotted the SD card, and surprisingly, stitching became a very important skillset. My final project was a stress detector (I should have a previous post on it, if not, one should be coming out shortly), which I also briefly described in my application.
Then we had an exam that tested our actual engineering ability, and I was obviously quaking. I'm not sure how much I can actually disclose about the paper, because at the time info was classified, so I won't go into too much detail about the questions, but I did the paper, and I left with a lukewarm feeling. It was by no means a bad paper, but I was uncertain of how it would pan out.
And then one chemistry lesson I felt my phone buzz, and against the rules, I checked, and found I had got through to the interview stage at Cambridge. Folks I was, for lack of a better word, shookt. SHOOKT CHILE. A whole me. Interview!!! So yeah I was gassed!!!! As was my mum, who was growing to like the concept of the £600 funds.
My school was on it like a car bonnet with the interview preparations. They helped me with my answering technique, how to sit, what sounding okay, and what could be misconstrued. By the time interviews rolled around I was readyyyyyy.
Or so I thought. My mum and I rolled into Cambridge with the Toyota, and she of course was praying (if any of you are Nigerian, you know how mum's pray. It was THAT sort of prayer, if you know what I mean). It was intermittently rainy and sunny, and I didn't know if that was an omen or not. We got to the Dyson Centre (beautiful may I add) and when I got in, the first thing I saw was some toy plane that somebody had built. I sat down next to a guy who had built a toy car, and had a journal logging 12 other projects. Behind me was a girl who had made a miniature bookshelf. And in front of me somebody had coded what seemed to be a game that was running on a computer monitor. So to answer your unasked question, yes, I was feeling a teeny bit inadequate with my measly stress detector.
Touring round the centre did ease my mind, and really solidify my interest in engineering, There was so much that I didn't understand, and in a way that was almost great, because I wanted to know it. It wasn't the sort of lack of understanding where you dont even care that you dont understand. I wanted to know what things meant, and someday master the subject.
PART 2 SOON
Comments
Post a Comment