Subject Masterclasses

The St Catharine's College Outreach team are hosting a series of online Subject Masterclasses for UK state school students in Year 12 (or equivalent e.g. S5/Year 13 NI). These will be hosted by students studying at the College and will offer prospective students the opportunity to experience an interactive subject specific taster session, to learn more about their subject, and challenge their thinking. These will be hosted online over Zoom and will be free of charge.

Registration

Booking is now open! The registration links for masterclasses can be found below. Spaces are limited as we would like students to experience what teaching and learning is like at the University of Cambridge. Students from our outreach 'Link Areas' will have priority, but we anticipate most of the webinars will have plenty of spaces for students from across the UK. Our link areas are North Yorkshire, Suffolk and Rutland.

Students will be notified in advance of the session if they have been selected to attend. Sessions will last 90 minutes and will consists of a subject specific presentation, interactive elements, and a chance to ask any questions at the end.

Upcoming Masterclasses

Mathematics - Sergio Estan | May 5th 2023, 5 - 6:30 pm | Register Here

Number Theory - Number theory is a central branch of mathematics focusing on the study of integers. It tackles problems like the Goldbach conjecture, which states that every natural number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes, Fermat’s last theorem or the infamous Riemann Hypothesis. The beauty of number theory resides on how easy it is to formulate these conjectures yet how their proofs require a deep insight into diverse branches of mathematics.

Congruences are a central tool in number theory, and as such we will discuss what it means for two numbers to be congruent and prove some properties of congruences. Time-permitting we will tackle some linear congruence equations and state the Chinese Remainder Theorem, which is of extreme importance in modern algebra

Medicine/Biological Natural Sciences - Sean Liu | May 23rd 2023, 5 - 6:30 pm | Register Here

Biological Scaling - This session will discuss size as the most important single determinant of organisms’ structure, function and evolutionary strategies, and how organisms face different challenges at different extremes of size. It will hopefully illustrate fundamental rules that govern all organisms and the diversity of strategies that optimise them.

Engineering - Andrea Hincapie | May 25th 2023, 5 - 6:30 pm | Register Here

Introduction to neuroscience: excitability - This session will introduce students to how the brain processes information, makes decisions and communicates with “basic” units, aka neurons. The aim of this session is to elucidate some of the working principles underlying the generation of action potentials and how engineering concepts can be applied to study their computational properties. We will give an overview of some of the molecular phenomena that make electrical signaling possible, then present the seminal work of conductance-based modelling by Hodgkin and Huxley and conclude with brief examples of how these building blocks come into the picture to coordinate high-level function across scales.