Journeys of the mind: summer 2023 at King’s College London

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Dr Sarah Williamson is Executive Director of Summer Programmes at King’s College London.

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Escape through travel works…Seat-belt signs lit up, problems switched off. 

The Beach, A. Garland 

Travel is often key to finding proper time away from the endless rush of everyday busy lives. Although travel in the mind is frequently facilitated by that of the body, physical removal of oneself from one place to another is a wonderful, but not intrinsic component of travel of the mind, as we all discovered through pandemic lockdowns.

This week, I welcome many who have travelled physically to enrol in a summer course King’s College London. But many others too who have only travelled a few yards to join our learning community as visiting summer students. Together we will all be taking our minds on a journey. New ideas, new friends, new architecture. Not to mention new lunch options, new nights out and new memories to be made.

Some of those summer students joining King’s today made an important journey before they applied to study with us. To come to this country as a refugee or forced migrant from war and trauma. Our scholarships in partnership with @UNHCR are especially for those students now living in England and looking for opportunities to take an academic course and become part of a learning community.  

Others coming later in the month will join us in England due to King’s relationship with  Aare Afe Babalola, the Nigerian lawyer and philanthropist who has also recently made a visionary gift to establish a new centre for transnational education to enable talented young Africans to make an ever-greater impact on the world on the foundations of access to stellar higher education. 

Summer schools need all the perspectives they can gather in order to be the most interesting, challenging academic ride into mind expansion. Over the coming weeks, summer students can expect to find their usual points of reference challenged as our large, hugely diverse student group comes together to learn in classrooms and out and about in London. Filling up mind and body with new knowledge, understanding ideas and ambitions before heading onwards to the next stop of their life journey after the summer.

Tour of Strand Aldwych: A work in progress

The home of Summer Programmes. Picture: London Architecture Diary

 Diversity finds a particular space to flourish in the short courses of summer programming. Our courses fit into and around people’s wider lives. There is something for everyone with courses for learners from 16 to 80 (and beyond! there is no upper age limit!) 12,000+ learners from 85 countries have studied with King’s Summer Programmes over the last few years. ​ Some are at the start of the good stuff in their education journey; others are nurturing a life-long interest. Some spend months with us; others spend a weekend. Many are enriching consolidated professional experience; others are only just deciding on careers.​ The programmes we teach marry market interest to King’s specialist knowledge and produce a programme that is the right content, for the right people, at the right time and place (- ​If there is not already something for you, tell us and we will build it!)

These days King’s surroundings are a haven right in the beating heart of the city. The newly pedestrianised Strand is a shady garden, putting peace and a space for reflection back where once a busy highway ran. Some years ago, Londoners started reclaiming public spaces from the machinery – both mechanic and bureaucratic – of the city and with that has come a common realisation of the vitality that quiet human spaces bring to a metropolis. Quiet powerhouses of thought and being, which are fundamental in any journey of the mind to new realisations and therefore growth.

Welcome to all who start their classes this week.
Thank you for giving us this chance to both teach you and learn alongside and from you.
We feel fortunate that you are now part of our lives as we are part of yours.
A precious gift indeed. 

Summer Programmes shares expertise at international education conferences

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For the first time in years, international educators have come together in person at the key global conferences in Asia and the US this spring. King’s College London has a strong voice in these fora in the areas for summer schools and short-term international programming.

APAIE (Asia-Pacific Association for International Education), The Forum on Education Abroad and EAIE (European Association for International Education) are world-shaping international education network-led conferences and gatherings. We are pleased to report that following events by these three international organisations, the future of international education once again feels more open, fluid and rich in opportunity.

From left: Gorka Hernandez and Ben Jones at the Asia-Pacific Association for International Education conference in Bangkok.

Interacting with hundreds of participants, highly experienced teacher, Gorka Hernandez Ortiz, Programme Development Manager, and Ben Jones, Programme Developer, presented papers and held talks at APAIE’s conference in Bangkok on sustainabilities and the continuing case for short term mobility, in addition to focusing their practice-led contributions around Summer Programmes’ art-education based approach to pre-departure programming.

From left: Dr Alexander Heinz, Melissa Torres and Fahema Ettoubi at The Forum on Education Abroad conference in Seattle.

Dr Heinz subsequently joined a seminal meeting of the joint leadership for EAIE in Rotterdam in his elected role of Chair of the EAIE Summer Schools Expert Community, to shape decisions on restructuring the 24-year-old global network for a post-pandemic world. Talks on balancing the organisation’s size and shape with its CPD training responsibilities and industry’s need for networking were the principal areas of discussion and are strong areas of interest to Summer Programmes. The spring term concluded with the largest conference for international education globally, NAFSA in Washington DC. Dr Heinz, E-Learning Dean at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, gave a 15 minute interview to give testimony to the volunteer spirit of this remarkable organisation in its 75th year.

From left: Gorka Hernandez and Dr Alexander Heinz at the NAFSA conference in Washington DC.

You can find out more about each of the conferences here:

Summer Education and Practice: Emancipatory Pedagogy using Google

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Christoffer Guldberg recently finished his dual PhD from King’s College London and the University of São Paulo with a thesis on police-violence, authoritarianism and resistance in Brazil. He has worked at the King’s Summer Society skills programme and as an educator in the UK, Brazil, Denmark and Portugal, and is a member of the editorial collective of the Decolonising the Curriculum Blog: Comfortably Uncomfortable at the School of social Science and Public Policy (SSPP).

In this short text, I’d like to build on a recently published article from my work as an educator in Brazil and at King’s College London’s Summer Society skills programme (Guldberg 2022) providing an innovative and practical way that educators can go beyond decolonising the curriculum and bring decolonisation into the  very teaching situation. I found the method being particularly well-suited to engage students and prepare King’s highly diverse, international Pre-University and Undergraduate Summer School cohorts for the critical thinking skills that they will need throughout their academic trajectories and beyond.

I am founding my practice in two findings of emancipatory pedagogy and de-colonial theory, namely that 1) the concepts and institutions that shape our lives, whether they be universities, academic disciplines, or criminal law, are shaped by colonialism and racism, and 2) to be emancipatory education needs to start from the lived experience of the student to avoid recreating social and racial hierarchies implicit in the “banking model of pedagogy”, instead allowing for teachers to be co-creators of knowledge, following Paulo Freire’s method for education (Freire 1970).

I develop Freire further and use Googles Images and Maps to allow students to explore how concepts such as ‘international development’, ‘drug trafficker’, the ‘United Kingdom’, or ‘Brazil’ are shaped by colonial imaginaries and practices that feed into the algorithms of search engines, social media, and other forms of artificial intelligence.

In practice, this can take the form of asking students to do a Google Image search for any concept, including the above, and analyse the results keeping in mind de-colonial and critical theories of race, gender and international relations. As an example, the results for international development clearly demarcate a difference along lines of geography, race, gender and age between the beneficiaries of development and those “experts” in Western universities, NGO’s and development agencies, who – not unlike the teacher of the banking model of education – bring development to the Global South. Similarly, a search for former colonies such as Kenya and Tanzania reveals striking differences to the way the former colonising country is portrayed, with the former being largely portrayed as objects of tourist consumption and places of political instability, and the latter portraying political institutions that have historically benefitted from colonialism. This can provide a ground for discussion both of how the algorithm works, including the different results according to geographic location, and the ways in which the mass of searches and clicks, along with choices of content creators, create an unequal world, which reflects Western-centric notions of development as a linear, homogenous process.

In decolonising the classroom, this method gives students important tools for critical thinking, which benefit them in their academic trajectories, particularly how to think critically about concepts, something that is of course a key part of de-colonial thought and critical pedagogy.

 

 

King’s Summer Programmes lead sector discussions at EAIE conference

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Alexander Heinz

As the international education sector is discovering its promising and changed future, Dr Alexander Heinz, Senior Associate Director Summer Programmes, and Gorka Hernandez Ortiz, Senior Programme Developer Summer Programmes, spoke at the EAIE 2022 conference in Barcelona. The discussions they led were attended by 500 industry experts. Gorka Hernandez Ortiz spoke about the future of hybrid learning. Dr Heinz’s contribution explored thinking and practice around overt and covert choreographies in experiential learning interventions. Together, they presented on the potential of arts-based pre-departure programming. As re-elected chair of the EAIE Summer School Expert Community, Dr Heinz also provided a session on custom programming, led through a campfire session on the International at Home potential of short-term programming and addressed the community at a summer school-specific reception with 120 experts from across the world.

UKIERI Study India – A participant remembers ten years on

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The Summer Programmes team at King’s College London project managed the UKIERI Study India programme from 2009-2012, initially with the University of Birmingham. During each year, the innovative scheme took 200 students from across the UK for up to one month to India. The programme included an intensive schedule of learning interventions, a high degree of daily mobility and short work experiences. Eleanor Salt, now Partnerships Manager (Europe, Middle East, Africa) in Global Engagement, and Dr Alexander Heinz, now Senior Associate Director in Summer Programmes, were working with other colleagues on the programme and in their current roles continue their contributions to shaping the future of international work at King’s College London.

We interviewed Alexander Gerritsen (* 1992), a participant in 2012, in summer 2022.

In 2012, was your international outlook before you joined the King’s College London managed UKIERI Study India programme?

I am originally from South Africa and was quite well travelled prior to the Study India trip. In secondary school I had participated in an exchange program in China. I had to travel to places in Europe. I had a passion for history and politics in a global context and so I was aware of some of the major pressure points in the world, such territorial disputes in the South China sea and of course between India and Pakistan.

Why did you apply?

The opportunity was brought to my attention by my course leader Dr Rachel Utley from Leeds University. We had recently been studying India and evaluating whether it is or would become a Great Power in the 21st century. I had also been learning about the British Raj and in particular the Indian mutiny of 1857. I used this all in my application for the course and I was successful.

The programme sparked my career path. Without it, I would not have been aware of the opportunities available to working abroad and the excitement of being exposed to different cultures.

What are your favourite memories of being in Mumbai?

Mumbai is a great city with such a rich history and an overwhelmingly vibrant present. I loved walking along the seafront or to the Gateway of India but my favourite memories were just walking around in any part of the city as well as exploring the markets. It was helpful to have locals with us to guide us to all the best places and try all the street food.

What do you remember doing there?

All the learning activities organised by King’s and the Indian partners – we did we start with a Mumbai treasure hunt walk, which took us to the major destinations. We also had visits to the Dharavi slums and the Bombay Stock Exchange. We attended lectures on economics, history, culture and religion which was fascinating. We would also have lots of group activities on the roof of our host college, including Bollywood dances to attend. We also had local student buddies so we got to visit their house. I was even taken by my buddy Aman to the country clubs where his family had membership – which had a clear postcolonial taste. We had two free weekends so for the first one we took the train to a nearby hill station- buying a ticket was a mission. On the second weekend I organised with a few people to visit New Delhi and Agra to see the Taj. It was an adventure.

What stands out most in your memory?

For me the internship with Unmeed really stands out. This was a NGO for vulnerable children who have learning disabilities. The NGO dealt with a cross section of society and really provided support to these people. A doctor told one set of parents that their little girl would be unlikely to ever go to university. The father was defiant at first and then began to cry. It hit home how incredibly competitive education is in India. Our student buddies told us stories about it and I remember seeing the billboards with the student grades. On a slight side note, this point was also illustrated in a movie we went to watch at the cinema which was called the ‘Three Idiots’ and featured three engineering students. I remember the film clearly. It was an absolute emotional rollercoaster.

Alexander Gerritsen with friends in Mumbai 2012

Have you been back to India since?

I have sadly not yet had the chance. I was actually supposed to attend an educational event in New Delhi in April 2020 but the trip had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

What has your career been since?

The programme was instrumental for my career as it brought me into contact with the British Council. I was able to take advantage of all the opportunities that they offer. I was selected to participate in the British Council teacher assistant course in Wuxi, China for a year and that was an incredible opportunity. I taught at a local school and had the opportunity to get to know my Chinese colleagues, learn Chinese. I then saw an opportunity in Lima, Peru, and I was offered the job to become a full time History teacher. This was brilliant and I stayed in Peru from 2015 to 2021. I travelled extensively around all of the Americas. I even swam with Great White sharks in Mexico. I did everything I could. Professionally, I advanced to teaching IGCSE and IB history and I even became a Head of department for the Theory of Knowledge. I started organising my own overseas programming, leading groups to South Africa and I participated in the Amazon raft race.

Alexander Gerritsen ten years on

What has the UKIERI Study India programme given you in hindsight?

The programme sparked my career path. Without it, I would not have been aware of the opportunities available to working abroad and the excitement of being exposed to different cultures. I fell in love with India and continue to follow their politics. On a practical note, to this day the programme allows me to have an immediate connection with Indians who I meet. We have many things to talk about!

Did you keep in touch with other participants for some time?

Yes, I certainly did for the first few years. We had reunions in London and were all involved in presenting about our experiences in UK schools. I am still connected with my friends on Facebook and Instagram. Many have been doing masters courses, either in the UK or Singapore. Some are in the United States. We occasionally catch up that way.

What are your plans now?

During COVID, I moved from Peru to Barcelona to undertake a masters in Diplomacy and International Organisations. Luckily, I am starting as a Blue Book Trainee at the Secretariat General of the EU Commission, with the duty of reporting directly to the Director General. I will be undertaking this traineeship until the end of February 2023 with the hope of finding a position in the EU afterwards.

Programming: The short term is here for the long term

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Dr Sarah Williamson is Executive Director and Dr Alexander Heinz is Senior Associate Director, Research & Innovation, Summer Programmes, at King’s College London.

When COVID hit in 2020, the crisis led to a cancellation of the vast majority of short term programming globally. As universities, our attention focussed on ensuring the delivery of the old core, and of moving degrees online. We worked hard and pulled together across teams and structural divides. With students as allies and being understanding of the extraordinary nature of the situation, most of us succeeded with moving into the world of 100% online learning. In crisis mode, in our thousands, we discovered a new digital cosmos at speed and focused our efforts at the same time on its possibilities for short course programming.

Two years into the pandemic and slowly moving out of it, we realise the hunger of our students for what they were missing. Before the pandemic, fear of missing out, ‘FOMO’, was an all too hedonist, insatiable way of life but now it has a harsher, insistent, desperate note that speaks of a harsh lack of community, of belonging, of experiential learning, of the yearning for serendipitous intellectual conversation. Life had stood still to some extent and a generation started to miss out on those things that form and educate the whole person; that shape memories. A generation was starting to be left out of gaining the community-based, future-building foundations of the early years of their adult lives.

We knew that these foundational elements often formed an integral part of short term programming, but to date, the focus of short term programming had remained concentrated in the realm of the international experience. Some in Higher Education looked at short international education courses as if they were a frivolity or an afterthought. Many had really started to see the possibilities of how summer schools, and other bloc teaching could open up opportunities to those who – for financial or other reasons – could not afford going abroad for an entire semester or year. We started to know about their long term impact before the pandemic brought education to a physical, if not cerebral, standstill.

The sector now stands at the dawn of a new era. We know that the digital will stay and this will also make the time spent on campus more meaningful rather than a physical and time-consuming challenge.  Short term programmes can be a deliberate way to enrich degrees They are a way to build in living experience, service, playfulness and collaboration.

Using short term programmes this way will mean a change of how the university sees colleagues who make this happen. These colleagues may have been employed to create third stream income; and indeed third stream income can only become more important for many of us as the public purse struggles to recover from the cost of COVID job retainment schemes.  Short courses may have been originally created to increase our exchange capital in international partnerships and to internationalise at home. Very few teams like Summer Programmes at King’s College London, have been strategically and creatively developing the capability of these programmes in the context of degrees.

So much of our lives is bite size these days and it seems as though today’s learners are able to derive value from the ephemeral more than previous generations. Research into the educational impact of short term programming certainly proves their positive impact. Since short term programmes are the ultimate building blocks of a flexible learning experience, they can be built around or fit into people’s lives in ways that enable even the busiest person to sign up for one and learn while celebrating the face-to-face interaction the para-Covid world craves.

Covid was not the end of these programmes but opened up new directions. It is time to keep following their evolution to see where they will lead us. Let us set about actively discovering the true long term impact of the short term. Let us move on.

The global challenge: developing sustainability skills in King’s summer programming

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Hannah Bond is Associate Director – Learning and Teaching for Summer Programmes at King’s College London. 

Education plays a key role in the fight against climate change and education institutions must prepare learners of all ages to with the ‘knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to address the interconnected global challenges we are facing’ (UNESCO, 2021). One of the ways universities and schools can equip young people with the skills and knowledge they will need, is through developing sustainability skills – the ‘knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes needed to live in, develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society’ (UNIDO, 2021).

Sustainability skills are relevant to all disciplines and levels, summer schools included. In July 2021, King’s Pre-University Summer School launched the inaugural Global Challenge to help prepare our students to address complex challenges and empower them to make informed decisions to positively impact society and the planet. Modelled on a hackathon – an event in which a large number of people meet to engage in a specific topic or challenge – the Global Challenge is an intensive problem-based group project that students complete alongside their subject studies.

Students are the future changer makers; they are integral to forging a more progressive world and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, it is the role of the education sector to properly equip students with this sustainability knowledge, skills, confidence and to understand complex issues so they can play a transformational role in helping to build a sustainable and inclusive future we can be proud of – and understand the cross-collaboration which is needed to get there. 

King’s Sustainability Officer Alexandra Hepple, who contributed her expertise to the project 

We recognise that summer schools offer students a transformative, intensive learning experience where they can learn alongside other young people from a wide range of geographical, cultural and academic backgrounds, and we recognise that such diversity can drive new approaches and creative problem solving. A key requirement of the project is that students address a global problem in a collaborative, thoughtful way, working with teammates from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds.   

Beyond developing skills directly related to sustainability, the Global Challenge aims to develop students’ creative problem solving and academic skills as preparation for university and beyond, with an emphasis on critical thinking, communication skills and teamwork. It also builds students’ understanding of sustainability, at a global level as well as in relation to their own lives and communities, and their exposure to varying perspectives/experiences 

In its first year, the Global Challenge project was adapted for online delivery due to the pandemic. Students learned about the factors contributing to food insecurity around the world, working together to identify solutions and communicate these to different audiences. 

“We discussed source reliability when sharing our findings. We also conducted research on the topic of the UN SDGs and how certain SDGs had links to our topic and we discussed ways we could incorporate them into our final activity.

We were able to all make very well structured arguments that were backed up by evidence and research. This skill is not only crucial to our future when in university but also to our current lives in high school.”

Lucas

For King’s Summer Programmes, Hannah Bond delivered a well-received presentation on ‘Hacking’ the Sustainable Development Goals: Facilitating global problem solving in short term programming at the 2021 EAIE Conference 2021, sharing the fresh work being done at King’s with the wider international education community. As our summer schools return to on-campus teaching in 2022, the prospect of running the Global Challenge in person is an exciting one.

Five steps to successful summer school online teaching

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Kat is a research student in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London.

A photo of Kat

In 2019, when I taught the Media, Gender and Culture module for the first time, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenging yet rewarding time as a summer school tutor. Teaching the course again in 2020 and 2021, in the context of the pandemic, was inevitably a very different experience. Sessions needed to be redesigned to work effectively online, and there were practical barriers to address as well, from students’ Internet connections to the availability of teaching resources in different countries. However, through testing different approaches and carefully revising the course material, I was able to create an engaging online summer school experience for the students on the course. Below are my top five tips for course design and online teaching practice in the summer context:

  1. Don’t try to replicate a face-to-face module in an online context. Online learning is an experience in itself and works best if approached as such. For instance, simply throwing in some discussion questions, as we may do in offline seminars, may not work in an online setting where engagement levels can vary (Zoom fatigue has become a term we are all too familiar with by now). Instead, I developed shorter, simpler tasks and activities that involved students actively doing something, such as watching a brief video clip and then conducting an analysis in groups.
  1. Find alternative channels for student participation and interaction. With the majority of summer school students being non-native speakers and in some cases having experienced educational systems in which speaking up in class is not always encouraged, a reticence to participate can be intensified in the online classroom – especially when students are unable to turn their cameras on due to connectivity problems. Thus, it was crucial to find other ways to enable student participation. One way was to invite my students to actively contribute via the chat. While this often meant that students wrote much shorter comments than they would when speaking out loud, I found that it benefitted especially those students who otherwise would not speak in class. Students organically started commenting and ‘liking’ their peers’ contributions, which helped foster a sense of community among a diverse group which had never met in person.
  1. Using emoji reactions, such as thumbs up or clapping hands, can be an extremely useful communication tool. Given the lack of non-verbal communication and body language, I regularly asked my students to “send me an emoji” to indicate their agreement to simple yes/no questions. For example, when working on a task individually, I would ask students to indicate via emoji if they needed more time to work on said task. Emojis can also be useful as an icebreaker activity, when inviting students to choose an emoji that expresses how they felt that day. Emojis were a shared form of communication which felt fresh, low stakes and spontaneous to students, and helped build a welcoming atmosphere in the class.
  1. Vary your platforms. Being in the same online meeting room every day, even if just for an hour, can be quite tiring. Therefore I incorporated activities on other platforms, such as Padlet, Mentimeter, or within Teams channels. The latter also meant that students would often continue discussions held during class after the live sessions had ended, including posting links to additional material. And again, these non-verbal activities were a great way for quieter students to still actively contribute to class!
  1. Be patient and flexible. There will always be unforeseen technical complications when running a course online, from students having microphone issues to breakout rooms not working as intended. As such, it is important not to overload a session with activities and to be prepared to improvise. The same is true for the asynchronous online learning that summer school students are asked to do in their own time. With most people reading everything on screen nowadays, it is important to choose short yet engaging readings (these do not always have to be academic, or could even be a website), but also include other activities, such as watching short video lectures, conducting independent research or brainstorming, or contributing to a Padlet.

Overall, my experiences showed me that King’s Undergraduate Summer School does not have to physically take place in London in order to be a unique experience. While the London location is undoubtedly an asset, there are many other contributing factors to the success of a module. As a colleague has elaborated on this blog before, we the tutors play a huge role in personifying the King’s experience. The above-mentioned steps, particularly the use of various channels of communication, as well as the general feeling of ‘we are all together in this online learning experience’, meant that I was still able to bond with my students over the course of the three weeks.

Creative experiential learning is still very much a possibility online. For example, the students and I visited Tate Modern virtually, exploring and engaging with their artwork on feminism which is accessible on their website. Even more importantly, the module benefited from a large number of brilliant guest speakers, both researchers at King’s lecturing on their areas of expertise, as well as journalists based in India and Paraguay – many of whom would not have been able to join us without online technology. As such, students got to experience London and the research community at King’s, as well as forming connections across a diverse group and participating in stimulating discussions. Whether online or not, this is what makes a great summer school experience.

Shaping the new era: conference season

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Alexander HeinzMatt Doherty

Throughout this autumn conference season the emergence of a new era in international education is increasingly visible, with colleagues globally dedicating their energy to developing education strategies for the future. King’s College London was prominently represented at the EAIE Community Exchange 2021. Dr Alexander Heinz, Co-Chair Summer Executive at King’s and Chair of the EAIE Expert Community for Summer Schools, hosted a roundtable on the marketing of summer schools and was a Spotlight session panellist discussing the para-Covid period. He also led the community in a very well attended campfire event on the future of short-term programming.

Later this month, Dr Heinz will be joined by Matt Doherty, Programme Developer at King’s Summer Programmes, to deliver a virtual presentation at the Global Inclusion Conference 2021 in Atlanta. They will be speaking about advancing inclusion through short term international programmes, making the case that short term programmes allow for creative ways of ensuring accessibility and learning about personal agency and responsibility for wider communities.

The Summer Programmes team is looking forward to continuing our conversations and partnerships with like-minded colleagues and organisations around the world as the year continues.

Summertime for new thinking

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Dr Sarah Williamson is Executive Director of King’s Summer Programmes.

Sarah Williamson

What a time we have all experienced in the past 18 months. The extent to which Covid-19 has changed our personal and professional lives is nothing short of a revelation.

Daily activities, including a wider range of jobs that anyone would have initially thought possible, have all been taking place online. We have gone from being rooted in our homes via national lockdowns to leaping into new ways of living via our electronic devices. Now, as we begin our second year of online summer teaching we are taking a moment to reflect on how far the world has come despite being forced to stand still geographically.

When Covid-19 began to affect our lives, we decided very early on that we would not let it curtail our summer learning programmes and summoned up all our ideas and energy to launch the King’s Summer Online programmes. The Summer team worked tirelessly to find the best ways to connect with you all via virtual means last year and this year they have taken those good beginnings and enhanced each aspect further. Digital inequalities have become a pronounced strand to our often uneven world and here at King’s Summer it has become an important consideration for our thinking and research plans. But as our lives have progressed, we have all experienced first hand some of the incredible value and ability that moving in an online education sphere enables and it is now clear that our future educational experiences will be all the better for seizing the opportunity to make use of the best of e-learning alongside the best of face-to-face learning. Why choose, when we can work a bit harder and have the best of both worlds?

Of course we all wish that we could come together in this great city of London – the original think space! – and share its dynamism and beauty in real life, but we are certain that though our connection this year may be digital, there is nothing virtual about the very real experience you will have with King’s this summer. And as soon as we all can, we want to welcome you in person to campus. #summerisreallife #summeristheonlyseason