BRILLIANT CLUB: CANCER BIOLOGY PROJECT
What is The Brilliant Club?
"The Brilliant Club is an award-winning university access charity that works with schools and universities across the UK.
"The Brilliant Club exists to increase the number of pupils from under-represented backgrounds progressing to highly selective universities. We do this by mobilising the PhD community to share its academic expertise with state schools.
"In pursuit of our mission, The Brilliant Club runs two core programmes; The Scholars Programme and Researchers in Schools.
"The Brilliant Club works with more than 12,000 pupils across its programmes.
We partner with nearly 700 schools in every nation and region of the UK and we work with 38 universities across the UK."
Our very own Rhys Pugh, lower sixth double Maths, Physics and Music student, has been selected for the Club and he has been keeping us up to date with what they've covered:
The Brilliant Club is a charity organisation that works with colleges/universities.
They provide opportunities for students (like me) to develop skills for University by working with a PhD tutor. The lessons are designed to push your academic potential so that you are better prepared for further study at University.
The theme of this project is prostate cancer research and how it can be treated.
At the end of the course we are required to write a 2000 word essay answering the question, 'How does prostate cancer become resistant to current treatment?'
This will then be marked by our tutor like it was an assessment for a University course.
The Brilliant Club will be providing more courses with different themes in the future but they will all allow you to gain this useful university experience, just as this project is currently doing for me.
Introduction Session (9/11/18)
We were introduced to our PhD tutor, Sarah, who taught us the basics behind how cancer cells form and the anatomy of a cell. We were then given a booklet that outlines the course and also monitors our progress. We were also set a baseline assessment which is to monitor what level we are currently working at. Overall, it was really engaging and interesting.
Lesson 1 (13/11/18)
We learned about how prostate cancer develops and were set a homework to ensure that we understand this.
Lesson 2 (20/11/18)
We learned about the treatment options for prostate cancer as well as the different types of prostate cancer. We are set a homework each lesson to assess our understanding of what we learned in the lesson.
Lesson 3 (27/11/18)
We learned about the process of cell migration in cancer.
Lesson 4 (10/12/18)
We began to plan our draft assignment, addressing the question: 'How does prostate cancer become resistant to current treatment?'.
Lesson 5 (17/12/18)
I received feedback on how to improve my draft assessment.
Final feedback (24/01/19)
I received feedback on my final assessment a final grade. I got a 2:1 (60/100).
Overall, this project with the Brilliant Club has helped me gain a better understanding of the application process for universities as well as how university assignments are set and graded. The lessons were also very engaging and interesting (even for me since I don't take Biology as an A-Level!) and I would highly recommend applying to future Brilliant Club projects/courses if you are thinking of university as they will help improve your UCAS application so that you will appeal to your chosen university more as well as showing a broader understanding of your subject area or other subject areas.
For more information about The Brilliant Club, visit their website.