From Oceanography to Emily Dickinson: a Morning of Scholarship

A huge thank you to all the WHS alumnae who gave up their time to come back to school for the Intellectual Curiosity Morning on Friday, which was part of Activities Week for Years 10 and 12. Students joined different groups for Q&A sessions with alumnae panels about life beyond WHS. It was a wonderful opportunity to ask young alumnae questions about academic life at university and the skills needed to transition from Sixth Form/A level.   

This was followed by subject-specific sessions led by alumnae themselves, designed to stretch students’ thinking on scholarly topics. These covered a huge range of topics. Economics undergraduate Lili Kirby (2021), currently studying at the University of Bath, led a session on Politics and Economics, while Zoë Rhoades (Class of 2019), who studied Natural Sciences at the University of Oxford, led a session on bio conservation. 

Cambridge University’s Natural Sciences graduate and PHD student, Eisavet Baltas (Class of 2017), explored oceanography and climate change. She asked, Could whales help us repair the climate? Aoife Clark (2017), who also graduated from University of Cambridge in Natural Sciences, talked about distinguishing memory systems. Fellow Cambridge graduate, Mariam Abdel-Razek (Class of 2017), focused on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, while Lauren Hughes (2021), currently at Cambridge, unravelled concrete poetry and ekphrasis. Lydia Fontes (2020), in her final year of studying English at Oxford, chose to discuss Charlotte Bronte's novels: Shirley and Villette and Jess Leunig (2021) who is also at Oxford, used unseen extracts in her session. Ava Vakil (2019), who graduated from Oxford in English Literature and Language in 2022, chose to focus on the poetry of Barbara Guest.  Aniya Selvadurai (2020), final year History undergraduate at Oxford, led a session on African American women in the Jim Crowe Era.

As you can tell from that list, it was an inspiring morning!