4 February 2021
Woldingham students eagerly embrace the opportunity to hone their independent research, critical thinking and effective writing skills by entering external essay competitions. As well as bringing its own reward of helping them prepare for undergraduate studies, a number of students have been awarded partial scholarships in the recent Immerse Education essay competition, reflecting the high calibre of their work (these were only awarded to the top 7% of entries in 2020).
Lower Sixth Formers Emily, Desiree, Molly and Milly and Year 8 student Chloe (pictured) chose to write about subjects they are passionate about, and, for some, the subjects they are planning to study at university. Topics covered included law, international relations, English, philosophy and medicine.
Emily: ‘Law is one of the main subjects I have been considering for university so this was a good introduction to what it might be like studying the course at uni. I carried out extensive research and wrote about whether or not legal decision making should use automated algorithms, which I thought was really interesting and is also something we’ve looked at in REthink (Woldingham’s Theology & Philosophy Club).’
Desiree: ‘I wanted to write this essay because I am interested in studying politics, economics and philosophy at university so I wanted to tackle a topic which resonated along this theme. I enjoyed writing my essay entitled “Is the UN still relevant” as it encouraged me to explore the effectiveness of globalised institutions and the importance of having a unified body to advocate for the freedom of humans. I am excited to dive further into this topic from other angles.’
Milly: ‘I entered the English category because I want to study English at university. The title of my essay was “Literature is elitist. Do you agree?”’
Chloe, despite only being in Year 8, has already had her sights set on a career in medicine for some years. She wrote her essay on her personal passion of public health, which she describes as: ‘The field of medicine that truly has no bias and its job is to improve the lifestyle of its citizens.’ The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly made the world more aware of the importance and impact of public health.
Molly’s essay was on the question ‘Who is the most underrated philosopher?’, which caught her interest as it addressed not only philosophical theories but also their impact. Another of Molly’s essays was recently highly commended in the Minds Underground Philosophy essay competition. For this, she wrote on the topic: ‘If I know I am sitting in my bedroom, must I also know that I am not falsely dreaming that I am in my bedroom?’