At the Open Days
Welcome to Materials 25th June 2015


Part of the reason we attended the Open Day was to encourage interaction with our #BetterWorld campaign. If you aren’t already aware, the School of Materials is part of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Within the Faculty we cover subjects ranging from materials to chemical engineering, via physics, maths, chemistry, civil engineering, and much more.
We’ve seen some inspiring staff and students studying these subjects and others down the years. People you’ve probably heard of – Ernest Rutherford, Alan Turing, Brian Cox – but also some equally amazing ones that you might know less about, such as the first ever female Le Mans race engineer Leena Gade.

All of these people have made the world a better place in some way. The #betterworld campaign aims to inspire you to think about how the world could work better with you, how you could follow in the footsteps of these people.
So yes, long parts of the day were made up of me feeling a bit silly while I tried to get people to take selfies with cardboard cutouts of Brian Cox, Alan Turing, and the rest and share them on social media. But never mind. If it made even one person aware of the great work done in Manchester, it’ll have been well worth the embarassment.
Mixing with Materials
It would’ve been a bit silly of me to not go along and see what the School of Materials had to say while I was at the Open Day, so I went to two talks to find out more about what’s on offer.
Dr Joseph Robson gave the first one. He was introducing a room full of teenagers and parents to materials science, and he started by calling it ‘the key enabling science that drives technological advance’. It’s a bold statement. When he went on to discuss the influence it has, though – from medicine to defence via transport, metallurgy, and chemical materials – it became clear that he had the evidence to back it up.
He also shared some information that caught my attention, so I’m sure parents and prospective students felt their ears prick up at this point, too. Automatic scholarships are offered to any Materials Science applicant who achieves A-Level grades of A*A*A OR A*AA. High grades, I know. But what a great incentive.

The Textiles talk, including Design, Fashion, and Business, was given by Dr Gianpaolo Vignali. You can see him in picture on the right, looking pretty happy as he poses with Professor Brian Cox(ish). Gianpaolo threw a lot of inticing facts at those in the crowd, including these little tempters: ours is the only uni that offers fashion as a BSc. We’re the largest Materials school in the Western World. Our degrees remain flexible at first, meaning you don’t have to choose your specialism until the end of first year. And we have the biggest collection of textiles books in the world! Not bad, hey?
He also demonstrated how much success our previous students have had, including the student in the video below. If you’ve been following the blog you might recognise her.
Alan TuringBetter WorldBrian CoxDigital MarketingErnest RutherfordLeena GadeOpen DayUniversity of Manchester
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.