BCUR

Today I managed to nip out and see one of our MB students (Alex Leeper) give a presentation as part of the British Conference for Undergraduate Research (BCUR). She used Prezi for her presentation. I had never seen anything like it before and was totally blown away by the 'cool factor' of the technology. Alex gave a good presentation, but sadly she didn't win any prizes. Another one of our students, Vicky Sleight, won best poster presentation (£200 worth of Amazon vouchers). GO VICKY!!

What is interesting about this whole conference is that NO ONE else within my research group told the students about this conference nor encouraged them to participate. I may be making big assumptions here, but probably most of them felt that since it wasn't a purely scientific conference what would be the point in attending. Students should undertake as many opportunities such as this during their degrees as physically/mentally possible. Students, no matter what discipline they're in, need to gain skills in presenting, communicating, leadership and improve their self-confidence. BCUR offered a perfect vehicle for this to occur. In my mind, perhaps this is part of the huge cultural difference between the US and the UK in how people approach life, especially those that are driven to succeed.