Welcome to our campus health segment for you are home live. I am Brianne Carter. I'm the assistant director for marketing and communications here at the Pat Walker health center And and we are currently in the Pat Walker health center. Yay. Yeah, and we're starting out our primary care clinic And our primary care clinic mainly seen students for you know acute urgent care But we also can see for chronic illnesses How's within the primary care clinic is our allergy immunization and travel clinic as well and they do immunizations travel consults TV testing and things like that And so for our primary care clinic, we are open the whole entire health center is open 8 a.m To 5 p.m Monday through Thursday and then 9 a.m to 5 p.m on Fridays And then our primary care clinic actually has some extended hours. They have Saturday clinics In the fall and spring semesters. And so but we are not open when there is home football games Unfortunately, it's pretty crazy. Sure.  We don't do a Saturday clinic Thanksgiving break things like that. Yeah, regular university holidays We have about 18 people tuning in. Let us know where you're tuning in from and when you'll be arriving here at the University of Arkansas. Yes, let us know where you're from. We'd like to learn more about you I'll go ahead and introduce Alyssa to you. Hi. I'm Wilson Martinez. I'm a social media manager for York Wellness. Yeah Hi. Yeah, absolutely. You said, uh, york wellness york wellness We're gonna learn more about that right as we go later in the tour fantastic. I'm gonna look forward to Excellent excellent. Well, yeah, so our primary care clinic they can do labs x-rays You can come here if you're sick. You're having a sore throat if you have an injury Um, whatever you can make appointments online. We have a patient portal If you go to health.york.edu Then we have a quick little button to push patient portal and you can get to that You log in with your ur credentials and you can schedule an appointment there And we have several ways Several different appointments available there But if you don't see the appointment type that you're looking for on there Go ahead and give us a call or you can walk in and we'll try to get you scheduled for a same day appointment Depending what's going on. Um, we do have triage nurses that can check things out for you But yeah, do you guys have any questions along the way to feel free to drop those? And let us know I can help answer and shout out to dina from cypress texas And carry from plano texas. Yeah, and now is the time to ask all of your uh, what your campus health questions Keep it healthy. Okay. We'll go ahead and walk down. So like this is our check-in area for primary primary care And also, um, I don't know if you saw the psychiatry check-in is also here because we recently did start billing insurance for psychiatry So our psychiatrists for students that students see our house up in our counseling psychological services suite And we'll talk about caps in a little while. Okay. Um, but the psychiatrists Patients check in here because we like to get that Insurance information and be able to do that. But if you do want to self pay, you can still self pay as well Sure, sure. So we'll walk down. Yeah This is our little lobby area our waiting area for patients And then also people kind of hang out here sometimes too if they're coming in with their friend Who's a patient can we do and they come in and study? Yeah, they can use the space So we have some different table areas that they can come in and they can study at We also have these little living machines. Obviously we have coca-cola now at the University of Arkansas You are a coca-cola campus. Yes And I actually I'm a primary coca-cola fan.  And so our walker family classrooms are used for various classes On campus. So you may have a class here whether it's public speaking university perspectives It's also used for meetings. Um, the multicultural center uses it for different events. Um, what's the multicultural center? So the multicultural center on campus is basically a resource for students. Um, that want to figure out Different areas where they may like plug in and belong on campus different identities and different identities on campus And so they just want to be able to help students Plug in figure out places and they have a cool space over there in the the Arkansas union as well Right, which is what maybe five minutes walk from here. Oh, yeah, and everything's pretty close. You may even be able to get there too Just like you jump on one of those scooters, right?  So this is our gy n women's clinic. Um, and To the to the right of me Or maybe to the left Would be our west parking lot. Um, so those are our west entry doors And that's where patient parking is but you could also get to it from that south end the building where we were More on that corner of maple and garland at the primary care clinic Um, but a lot of students and patients come in through these doors They also come in through those other doors just because they're like the little middle middle entries And so this is where patients who are needing an age you write an annual exam Maybe wanting some birth control contraception options Or wanting some sti testing anything like that. They would come Potentially to the gy n women's clinic or we also do sti testing in our primary clinic and on campus We have about 6200 students in beds, but off campus. We have another You know several hundred who are going to be with university housing, but also, you know coming on campus Is this where they would probably park? Yes, yes for sure. So we have patient parking and if you do want to park in that patient parking and there are limited spaces unfortunately A lot of people park in that patient parking or they park in the garland parking garage But if you want to use our patient parking, you would just come in Come to the desk if it's gy n women's clinic you're coming to Or if it's primary care, you come they'll write you a parking pass.  You come back Oh nice nice. Okay. So yeah getting in getting out a little easier than it can be on the rest of campus for these medical reasons Good deal. All right. We'll walk here and I kind of have some temporary way parking signs right now That's just because we have some senior walk construction happening on This east side of our building And so I wanted people to be able to know sort of where they were when they walked into the health center And kind of how to navigate to where they were wanting to go, whether it was, you know Our allergy immunization clinic where a lot of students come for their allergy shots primary care clinic Or our gy n women's clinic and I do want to also tell you too that our medical clinics are available to faculty and staff as well So you'll see all sorts of people walking through here As you if you come into the health center, right? I can remember a couple years ago when we had this is before covid There was some Virus going around and we got plenty of vaccinations right here. I wonder what that was what that would it was before covid Yeah, it was something like that. Yes. That's what it was. That's what it was MMR that is now a requirement for students to file that they have their m mr They have to submit that and they get the paperwork and if you haven't done that already You probably didn't get tripped up on registering for classes for fall But if you don't have it in start-up classes, they're going to start sending you emails And you won't be able to register for your spring classes if you don't have That that religious exemption. Nice if you don't have the m mr's nice call out for spring semester. Be ready Okay, excellent. We'll go up the stairs to the uh second floor, right? On the topic of immunization, you know, we do still have you know, covid is still a thing still out there So is the flu to make sure you get your flu your annual flu shot and we'll be promoting that for you guys and then your covid booster and they are in the process of deciding, you know, what that next covid booster will be But as soon as we know what that's going to be, we will get that mistic out to you. Yeah and flu vaccination That's important, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. We're hoping that the new covid like booster Will roll out when flu vaccination rolls out. So that hopefully is very convenient for you to get both of them at the same time But we'll see We'll see what happens when we're into caps territory. It looks like yes. So this is counseling and psychologic services Also known as caps and they offer a variety of critical resources for our campus Here and so they have 24 hour mental health emergency services. So that's a 24 hour phone line That's on the back of your student ID. So is the main health center number So that main caps number will also be the 24 hour line. Um, when it's after hours for caps And then they also offer short term individual Therapy counseling They offer groups and workshops We might get a little loud with a senior right. Um, so I am going to have to swipe to get in here But typically in the normal day since we're after hours right now Typically in a normal day, this is going to be green. It's not going to be red. We'll be able to just pull the door Yeah, just come in and out as you need. Yes and so I'm going to kind of show you guys the the waiting room for caps As well as our lane mars realization room So this is the waiting room area and typically if you're coming in for an initial consult Which is free with caps and that short term individual therapy is also free with with caps and when I say free I mean it's included in your student health and wellness speed. That's included in those other fees. That's with your tuition Um, that kind of covers this area and several other programming and services that we do um, so for caps short term individual therapy groups workshops um Using the lane mars relaxation room Initial consults things like that that's all included In that fee and then for psychiatry services if that's what's decided that you potentially need Then you could bill with your insurance or you could solve pay which is new now, right? Yes. Yeah So previously psychiatry services you would just do the self pay But we found that a lot of our students And our patients really wanted to be able to bill with their insurance So we now have that as an option Which is really great for for students that want to be able to do that right because we have Probably 3000 students who live within I don't know Five minutes of this place right now Like we have a huge grouping of people who live on the north end of campus campus, which is where we are now Yeah, so something specific that I'll tell for housing students that are living in those on campus halls or dorms or that off campus housing as well That we have embedded counselors within housing And so they have offices over in like different dorms, but then they also have offices here So depending on the day and the time they may be here or over there But they work directly with housing students, which is really great for you all.  Let us know Yeah, for sure. For sure. We're always here. We've got resources to help you. Yes So we're going to go into our lane mars relaxation room And this space is kind of like a meditation relaxation. It's so cool and calm in here. Yes Has massage chairs. It has puzzles You could do coloring sheets in here too. If you wanted to we had some coloring sheets out in our waiting room beanbags It's just a space to kind of quiet your mind relax your thoughts a good space for some patients that are coming in Clients that are coming in they'd like to just chill out here before they go in for their appointment Or if you're not even a client of caps and you just want to come in and check out the space and hang out in here Be our guests here. You're welcome to come in here anytime the health center is open And you don't even have to check in at the desk to come into this space. The door is left open during hours Now if you wanted like an ipad for a meditation app or something like that Then you could go out to the desk and they would help you out with that Perfect even for staff. I like myself if you wanted to that's cool. Love that All right, so we'll go out here and then something that I did want to tell you too Is that obviously this is after hours and so we take our patient and our client confidentiality and privacy Very seriously here at the health center. And so that's why we decided to do it after hours and For this particular space, we don't we don't walk people back through we don't do tours Back through like throughout caps unless it's like an after-hour time So if you are a visitor you have like an r so group or your sorority group or fraternity or whatever And you'd like to come and check out our spaces. We'd love to show them to you Just give us a call and then we can help you do that But yeah, for particularly for you know, we don't usually do like tours Protect people's discretion. Yeah. Yeah, but then downstairs people will walk through and all of that That's why we we do say like no photos and videos and no like tours of like the private space Yeah, and that even that Even that window is You can't see through it. Yes That are kind of Sure Yeah, it may feel like you're like, oh, where am I going? Like I don't know how to give them to cats These big letters, but you do have to just go around So this is one of those study spaces that we had talked about. Yeah, let me get a good look at it here um and study If it's for finals if it's for just regular Class exams or quizzes or you just want to come and hang out in the space This is one of those It's comfy and what a great view across the hall for Students of the show. It is a few uh hulkum. It's right across the hall So several dorms are very like walking distance. I know we used to call them the quads They've gone along with the quads, right? Morgan and and gatewood and harding and I'm forgetting the other one That'll come to me. So yeah, you guys will be really near Pat Walker health center. I'm sure you walked right past it for a lot of your classes if you are in one of those dorms that we had named off And then we're getting up to our seer and york wellness suite area that's shared So we just walk past this admin areas and I'm not going to show you that. Okay. That's where my office is I want to come and see me um But seer is our substance education assessment and recovery program And they do things specifically for students for prevention treatment and recovery for substance abuse um And then also just educating the campus that maybe you know somebody that is um struggling with substance abuse or Maybe you're you want to just like learn more about limiting your alcohol intake Things like that and so they do naloxone trainings There's one a month happening this fall. What is that? So naloxone is um A recovery like medication. So sometimes it comes in injectable form and sometimes it comes in nasal If you had somebody that um was overdosing from opioids Then you could administer that naloxone. And so that's why the trainings that seer does is very important They bring in somebody called northwest arkansas harm reduction And they are able to give you that training It's a one-hour training and then you can get some naloxone yourself to carry with you. Yeah, you'd like So that's very cool.  We partnered with asg Which is our associated student government And they did that with us and they made it into a scrunchie And then it comes nice nice We also have the razorback recovery community With seer and that is a community of students that are in recovery or seeking recovery From drug or alcohol abuse and they can Work with our peer recovery specialist And we also have assessments that we can do we have a licensed mental health practitioner She's licensed in the state of arkansas and she does assessments of For student struggling with alcohol or drug related issues. So several resources within seer Sounds like a lot of resource people who are you know trying to um be the best be the best self.  Yeah. Yeah, so the uork walrus and meet um, Meet you there. Yeah Is um, it's through university recreation and then i'll let alissa sort of take it away But this is where you would enter. Let me swipe. So typically it would be unlocked But after hours we we lock everything down pat walker after hours right here. Okay, typically it'd be unlocked But this is a shared suite between seer and york walrus. So if you were coming in for either Nice. Nice. Yeah. Hello Hi, we just opened the wellness lounge this march And it's a new place that we've opened so students can come and just have a quiet Relaxing area where they can study or just recharge between their classes If you come with me back here, we have a ton of free snacks Even have our refrigerator Oh, what's in there? Let's see what's in the fridge right now. We have some cheese cheese sticks. Yeah But a lot of times we have yogurt. Okay, and we have different just like nuts and stuff It's always getting restocked with different things and this is just like come in and grab it Yeah, you can come in anytime the pat walker health center is open and grab whatever you need We also have a bunch of stickers and buttons that we've made Yeah, there's some condoms in there They have condoms. We have some condoms downstairs, too. Don't be afraid to grab some Grab whatever you need excellent, um as well as some hot water if you want to make tea and things like that Very good. And this particular organization you're involved with has been on campus for a long time and um, how did you get involved with it? Um, I got my job last year. Um, honestly, I just found a job posting for a social media manager position And that's something I've been interested in doing for a while because I really like marketing I think it's like a great way to get the community together And I applied for it and I got it fantastic. Wonderful. And what is your major? Um, I'm actually a theater performance major Really very cool. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah So as you're programming in this space or is it really just drop in drop out? Um, this space is usually just drop in drop out. Um, we have a lot of different programming outside of here We do a wellness hut that you'll see around campus during the fall a lot Or our peer educators come out and they talk about different like wellness topics We talk about the eight dimensions of wellness This like sleep habits just anything you can think of we talk about it and try to help out the student body with Speaking of a great outreach that you guys are doing When it comes to sleep, which is always an issue for particularly a first year student Uh, do you have any tips or tricks or any practices that you follow? Yeah, I would just say you can't you have to prioritize your sleep during finals or just whenever you're studying Because your health is just as performant as important as you're studying or like how dedicated you are to that During your like test time you your health has to be good for you to get good grades So what I do is whenever i'm studying I always just like cut myself off at like six or seven And I just take time to myself and I get a good night's sleep because it's really really important Absolutely and still and still making the grades obviously so that practice is really working See see and no all-nighters. Um, no, not that I know of that's almost unheard of amazing way to go Yeah, well, let's see. We've got a nice little study space here as well with Funny fun pillows inspirational pillows and It's okay to not know at all It's okay to not know at all Uh, so this area obviously can be used for uh, see your stuff. Um, if you're coming in and you're having an appointment with our seer program coordinator Or if you're coming in to just check out we do have a razorback recovery lounge I'm not going to show you that today just because it's in the process of getting reorganized for fall But there is a lounge dedicated just for the razorback recovery community and then um, there's like a conference room area right here But if you're coming in for an appointment for that or if you're coming in for wellness coaching So your wellness also does some wellness coaching as well, which is for you to students And they can talk about like other ongoing issues And then if it is something that they think that needs to be referred to potentially like a caps counselor or something like that Then they would do that. So we do a lot of like cross collaboration and referring if that's needed Yeah, we can help you get to whatever resource you need Well, um, please chime in if you have any questions for us. This is the time to ask about health questions Um, are there any questions you get asked like over and over? I've recovered it already Um, so sometimes we get asked well a lot of times we get asked about insurance And how that works with like our primary care clinic and so or our gyn women's clinic So any of our medical clinics we build with insurance. Um, you can self pay, but there's only a temporary self pay discount Um, so it is beneficial if you do have insurance. Um, we'll see you either way But we do accept most major insurances. Um, and there is a student insurance that students can purchase But most students utilize their parents insurance Are their family members insurance that they've already been on and so we accept most major insurances Just double check. Um, that will be a network and how you do that is we have a medical provider staff directory on our website Um, so if you scroll down to the bottom of our website, there's something called quick links And then if you click medical providers, you could get to it there or if you just clicked on medical health It has a link on that page as well for our medical providers staff directory We also have a full staff directory for all of the staff in pat walker So you could check that out as well But you just use one of those providers names and when I say provider that means a physician or a nurse practitioner We have a mix in our clinics Majority is physicians licensed board certified physicians, but also licensed board certified nurse practitioners That see our our patients that come in So yeah, bill of most insurances They take your insurance when you check in or you can go ahead and you can upload it on that patient portal that I talked about So that it's already there and then they just verify your emergency contact information Sounds pretty straightforward. How nice just like your regular hometown doctor And you can dedicate one of our providers here at the Health center as your primary care provider during your time as a student here if you'd like, okay, very good Well, I think it's another new questions. Yeah, most asked questions. Do you have any most asked questions for wellness? I'm not sure Yeah, um, I guess Um, our presentations that our peer educators do um, they go to different clubs and organizations across campus And if you're part of them anyone can request them so you can learn about basically whatever you want You can request a topic for us to make to talk about with you guys. What's the most popular topic? um Do you think Probably just like stress. Okay. Yeah dealing with stress, which is Even as a as an adult that's something I struggle with so very good And we have the link um in our bio our instagram bio Newark wellness to find more information about um the peer mentors and the wellness coaching just everything Yeah, oh excellent excellent. So that would be that would be your advice I guess for first year students coming in is check out that york wellness at instagram. Yeah You can find a ton of different help on our website. Okay, very good Yeah, and we're at u of a health if you want to learn more about pat walker health center So we've talked about medical mental health and substance use and support services Um upcoming. I will tell you guys in the second week of classes during what we would call welcome weeks here on campus We're going to have our first annual walker. Welcome. It's w e l l Because we want to be well, right? Welcome block party. It's going to be wednesday august 30th from 11 a.m. To 1 p.m And we'll be on that south end of our building where most of our foot traffic is on the corner of maple and garland We'll have music. We'll have kona ice Well supplies lacks we'll have drinks and just different resources from all these different areas that we kind of walked through and talked about today So come check us out get some swag And learn more about if you had a question that maybe you didn't get answered on here Then we'll help you get the right answer. That sounds like a ton of fun And as you can you can listen in here, there's so many resources here for you when it comes to staying healthy Having a great educational experience over your years here and Not seeing any more questions. So Anything else we need to talk about? I think we covered it. Yeah, we did it come see us. We're we're here to help you connect and Stay happy and healthy on the road to graduation. So You wave us out. Yeah, okay. Thanks for tuning in everybody. Thank you


This video is sponsored by professional photographers of America. Join a community of over 33,000 photographers and find equipment, insurance, education, and business tools made specifically for photographers like you. So I've tried acrylic. I've tried fine art papers. I've tried printing on aluminum. I've tried metallic papers. And through all this experimentation with printing my astrophotography over the years, I've definitely gotten some results that I do truly like. But it wasn't until I discovered backlit prints on transparent film that I really felt I found the ultimate method for displaying my deep sky astrophotography as framed art. So in this video, I'm going to explore what makes this printing technique so powerful compared to other options for printing astrophotography. I'll talk about the pros and cons of this printing method and I will show you how to make your own wireless backlit print. Hello, my name is Nico Carver and this channel is all about astrophotography, the art of taking photographs of the night sky and displaying them. And there are many different specialties within astrophotography. And as my channel name, Nebula Photos, suggests, my specialty is photography of nebulae, which are these beautiful clouds of gas and dust out there in space. One of the most challenging things about processing and mostly displaying photos of nebulae is that there is a lot of subtle variation in the shadow detail that does show up pretty well on a bright screen, whether it's a monitor or a smartphone, but it's much harder to display those subtle variations on typical print media. And so we're going from an additive model of color on the screen that uses a white backlight and then it filters that light through all these little red, green and blue filters to make all the different colors you see on the screen. We're going from that to a subtractive model of color with traditional printing where you're laying down combinations of pigments, you know, cyan, yellow, magenta, black, gray. And those pigments are getting absorbed onto a medium, usually paper. And there are definite downsides to each kind of model for displaying color, but the major downside with normal printing onto paper is that you'll never reach the kind of contrast ratios you can with a screen. And that means some detail, especially in the shadows, are always going to get lost when you're compressing the amount of contrast available. Now, this is where backlit prints with a transparency film as the print medium really shine as the method can achieve much higher contrast ratios than we get with normal printing on paper or other opaque media. So I first learned about this method in 2018 when an astrophotographer named Greg Marshall had a booth at NEAF, which is an annual astronomy conference. And Greg was offering backlit printing as a service for astrophotographers and he was showing off some of his astrophotography using this method. And I was just blown away by how good these prints looked when they were backlit. Now, Greg no longer offers printing, he still does make excellent tools and accessories for astrophotographers. Those are available through his website, watchered.com. And I actually just ordered a new flats panel from him. But to continue with the story, because Greg stopped offering backlit printing as a service, this set me off on a journey to find some kind of suitable replacement for what he was offering because I was just so blown away by it. And that turned out to be much harder than I thought it was gonna be. I tried for a long time to make prints on transparency here at home using my home printer, which is right behind me here. It's a eight color inkjet, the Canon PIXMA Pro 100. But with the backlit transparencies they came out very washed out once I lit them up. You can see my best attempt here and you can see it's not very good. I just couldn't get the black level correct no matter how I messed with the settings. So eventually I gave in and I turned to commercial printing. I found out that there's a whole industry actually with backlit printing for signage and advertising. Once I thought about it, that made total sense because I'd seen these things before. So I ordered a Dura Transprint from Blue River Digital and that company specializes in this kind of thing and Dura Trans is their most expensive product because it actually goes through a photochemical process to expose it and it's not just an inkjet print. But what that allows them to do is get much deeper blacks onto the transparency, which of course is very important for astrophotography. So even though this was expensive, this was $59 plus shipping for a five by seven print. For me to realize my artistic vision of what a framed print of my work should really look like, it's well worth the cost and I plan to order bigger prints from them in the future too. This video isn't sponsored by Blue River Digital but I'm proud to say this video is sponsored by PPA, Professional Photographers of America. I just joined recently and I'm very happy with what they offer as part of a membership.  We all know that astrophotography gear can get very expensive and to tell you the truth, all of my photography and astro gear is probably one of my biggest investments worth more than my car. So I've often thought, I really should ensure my photography equipment like I have insurance for my car if it's so valuable but I've just never really gotten around to it. Well, PPA makes that super easy because membership includes $15,000 worth of equipment insurance. And it's a very nice plan. I did look into the details. If something breaks and you need full replacement, it's a $350 flat deductible or if you wanna get your equipment repaired, it's just a $50 flat deductible. The equipment insurance alone makes it worth it PPA membership for me but then there's also data recovery services. That could be huge like if you're shooting a once in a lifetime event like a total solar eclipse or a meteor breaking apart. And then lastly, PPA is very active in terms of photography, education and training. I know that many of my viewers practice other forms of photography outside of astro. So if that sounds intriguing to you, follow the link in the video description for a special discount on your membership. Okay, now let's talk about the pros and the cons of this printing method compared to other printing methods. So I've already talked about the biggest pro which is the improved contrast ratio and that allows for more detail. But just to drive that home, let's compare a few sections here of the backlit transparency print versus an inkjet print at the same size done on a very good fine art paper. Another pro of backlit printing is it looks good in many different lighting conditions including in the dark. I think it's the only kind of print I can think of that actually looks just as good in the dark as it does with lights. And lighting conditions are one of the hardest parts of getting a print to look right. So for instance, I really do like my high gloss metallic print, I had this made for a gallery show in DC. And for the show, it was lit very well, that worked fine. Then after the show ended, I brought it home, I've been displaying it here in the apartment and I don't have professional track lighting. So half the time I look at it and there's so much glare from the window light or whatever that I can barely see it. So viewing angles, viewing conditions, being not quite as important if you have a backlit print are another big pro I think for this method. The biggest con of backlit transparency is the only way I have found that works for getting it to look right is having the transparency print actually printed by a pro like using this actual photographic process. And this means you can't take advantage of home printing if you already have a nice printer at home. And it also means that that cost is higher. A smaller con is you need to use a backlit frame and traditionally this means having to plug into a power source and then think of how to hide the dangling wire. So to end this video, I wanted to address my method for getting around the wire which is to DIY a frame that is powered by batteries instead. And there are a number of ways I could have gone about making this but for this first tutorial on making this kind of frame I wanted to keep it as cheap and as simple as I could think up. Okay, step one, I'm just using a cheap shadow box frame from Michaels here and I'm gonna remove these inner supports with a razor blade in my fingers and take out the front glass but save it for later. Then I'm going to add some shiny foil tape to the inside of the frame. Just tear and press in. My shadow box came with some foam on the backing board so I'm just gonna roughly remove that from the backing board. And then I have this LED light strip with a battery compartment. So I'm gonna cut out a spot from the backing board for that battery compartment to fit into.  This is gonna be a back reflector for our light box. Then I'm gonna place the glass back into the frame. Then the transparency print we had ordered.  That's gonna sort of diffuse the light onto the print. Then I'm gonna glue and tape some foam. So little pieces of foam core that I cut out to provide support for those front pieces in the frame and keep them from falling back. Then I'm going to stick on the LED light strip so you just take off the backing and stick it all along the sides. And I started by just filling all available space with the LED strip. And I think that worked out well. Then I put in the back reflector piece that I made with foam core and tape and tested. And it looks bright here on camera but it actually looks really good in person. So I was happy with this, but if it was too bright you could remove some of the LEDs from the strip. And then I'm just gonna replace this backing plate that now has a cutout for the battery compartment and secure everything. And you're done. It was actually really pretty easy. Don't need a lot of tools or anything to do this project. So hopefully this was helpful and I do plan to make other videos on printing but this is the one I was most excited about sharing which is why I did it first. And it was only possible thanks to my sponsor PPA. So please remember to take a look at the link in the description for a special discount on your membership for professional photographers of America. Till next time, this has been Nico Carver, Clear Skies.


Hello, my name is William Heatherington and I'm head of the IFSELS department at SAWAS University of London and this presentation is really to tell you about our ICC International Foundation Programme. I think it's probably best first of all to differentiate this programme from the Foundation Year programme which is also offered by SAWAS which is part of a four-year degree, four or five-year degree but it's part of an undergraduate degree. The ICC International Foundation Programme is a standalone one-year programme which is provided by SAWAS and it's predominantly for international students who need to do an extra year of study or have not got the relevant grades to be able to get direct entry to SAWAS. In terms of the presentation itself, I'll be first of all saying a little bit about our department and then talking about the strengths of the ICC International Foundation programme. I'll then spend some time going through the content of the programme both in terms of the structure and then a little more detail in terms of the modules that are available for students to study over the year. Then I'll say a little bit about the workload, how the timetable works, how many hours students study and also how they are assessed and then I'll spend a little bit time talking about progression because we have students progressing to SAWAS at undergraduate level but we also have students progressing to other universities as well so I can give you some information about that. Then I will leave you with my email address so if you have any questions you want to ask me then you can always contact me directly for more detailed information. So in terms of our department if-sales which stands for International Foundation Courses and English Language Studies, we have a number of objectives that we are trying to achieve through a range of different programmes that we offer and the ICC Foundation programme is one of them. So first of all we are we are trying to prepare students for degree level study whether that is undergraduate level or postgraduate level because we run a pre-masters programme as well. We're trying to provide students with a range of different academic subjects that they can study really ranging from arts and humanities modules through social science and business and finance as well in terms of the undergraduate foundation programme, the ICC Foundation programme. We're also as well as obviously as well as trying to develop students English. We're also focusing very strongly on the academic study skills that students need to develop in order to adapt to a UK higher education culture. For a lot of students the transition from studying at predominantly at higher school in their own country to students studying at university in the UK, that transition is quite significant and so students do need time and they need strong and clear guidance on how to adapt their approach to study in order to be able to really develop the skills that are suitable for university study in the UK. We have an approach which really tries to combine academic study with academic English study as well so many of the academic English lessons that students attend on our programmes are actually combined and integrated into the academic modules that they study so normally students will for each of their academic modules they will have two different teachers they will have a lecturer for the academic content and they will have a subject specific English support teacher who is helping them both in terms of their language but also in terms of the comprehension of the content of the modules in terms of the development of critical skills so that students can engage with the content of academic modules at some depth and so this combination of two teachers is very effective both in students being able to develop English and study skills which are really focused on particular subject areas but it also gives them a chance to review and reflect on the content and the ideas the concepts the theories that they're being presented with by the lecturer as well. And finally we're trying to provide students with a university campus experience as well campuses in the UK can be quite different to campuses in other universities in the world. SOAS has a very distinctive campus a very dynamic a very passionate and a very multicultural campus and so it's a really exciting place for students to really familiarise themselves with campus life not just in terms of studies but being able to develop strong links to other areas of the university including the student union and the clubs and societies that are that are available through them and also the student support services so advice and well-being careers things like that so it's really important for us to give our students the opportunity to really engage with all aspects of the university through a strong campus experience and obviously last year it was very very difficult with pandemic this year we have a larger number of students who are studying on campus over the first term some are on campus and some online and then hopefully by the second half of this year all students will again be studying on campus and our students study on campus as well so we're not separated at all from the rest of the university. So in terms of the strengths of the ICC foundation program for me they're very very clear strengths so it's easy for me to be able to present them to you and our foundation program is quite distinctive in a number of different ways first of all it's very well established and the ICC foundation program has been running for over 30 years so it's an integral part of SOAS but it's also very well known by other universities within the University of London but also across the UK and so it's a useful way for students to be able to prepare themselves for study at a range of different universities and we do have students applying to many different universities in the UK for their undergraduate study. So last year so the students last year they got offers from around about 13, now yeah 13 of the top 20 universities in the UK so it's well recognized, it's recognized as a serious foundation program and therefore it is well respected by other universities. Rather than offering straight pathways we offer a range of different modules that students can take. There are some constraints on the combinations that students can take but really what we're trying to do is give students a choice so that they can choose subjects that they are motivated by that they're interested in and that they feel confident that they can perform well in as well and as I mentioned before these range from business finance through social sciences and arts and humanities subjects as well. The the program has been running for a long time and also many of the staff have been working within the if sales department for a long time and around about 80 percent of the staff have taught within our department for at least 10 years and quite a number have been teaching for at least 20 years so there is a wealth of teaching experience within the staff and they have a very clear understanding of the challenges that international students face when starting their studies in the UK and the kinds of demands that are put on students and the ways that they have to adapt in order to prepare themselves fully for undergraduate study at SOAS and other universities around the country. As I've said before you know we're trying to give students a university campus experience I mean obviously this is a central London campus students have full SOAS status so they have access to the world renowned library one of five national libraries within the UK the student union student support they will predominantly use accommodation halls of residence that are populated by other SOAS students so again it's very it's much easier for students on our foundation program to feel part of a university student cohort as well and finally yes the location is very useful it is in central London it is in walking distance from a whole range of different museums art galleries theatres cinemas and shopping areas parks and so there is a lot that students can discover about London while they're studying as well okay so moving on now to a bit more about the structure of the ICC foundation program and then I'll look in a bit more detail at the modules that students can take so so first of all students will take four different modules and two of those modules are compulsory so all students take those modules and then students choose two additional elective academic subject modules from a range of eight and so you can see you can see from the list that the the two compulsory modules are academic English and understanding the modern world understanding the modern world is a compulsory academic module so students attend lectures around subjects connected to modern society global modern society I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute there is also a range of elective academic modules there's business studies economics there are other social science subjects politics international law and development studies and then there are some arts and humanities subjects like media and communications world history and world art and literature so there's a really good range of subjects that students can choose to follow during the year and students will choose these they'll choose four modules and they will study them through the whole year so looking at the modules in a bit more detail the academic English module to some extent it's really trying to focus on what we might call academic discourse so this is not specifically or only to do with language it's more to do with how students are expected to use English in an academic context and so it's it's really a connection between the the English that is required the study skills that are required for the different activities that students participate in during their studies whether that's lectures or seminar tutorials whether that's research reading or delivering academic presentations so you've got the language you've got the academic study skills and you've also got critical thinking so it's also partly trying to get students to develop a what we call a critical approach to their studies and and so what this really means in terms of what I mean by critical approach is that students are going beyond merely understanding what they're reading or understanding what they're talking about and they get and they get to a point where they can evaluate they can look at the strengths and the weaknesses of concepts of theories that they're being that they're covering in their classes and they can start to develop their own ideas and their own perspectives and this is really really important because much of what students do in terms of writing I mean producing English whether that's writing or whether that's discussions in seminars or whether that's presentations students are encouraged to develop their own perspectives and present those perspectives so it's really trying to get a combination of language improving students vocab range of vocabulary improves the accuracy of their language but also connecting that to essential core study skills and then also this development of a critical awareness as well understanding the modern world is really a very broad kind of foundational fundamental kind of academic module and it's really trying to get students to think about how we have got to where we are now it's it takes a historical approach so it goes back and it starts looking at developments in economics in politics in social issues around the world so that students can start to see how society has developed how globalization is affecting that development as well and kind of where we are now and I think it's a very important thing for students to understand that in order to understand current contemporary issues they need to have an understanding of the historical development of those issues as well in terms of the elective academic modules as you can see there's a there's a range of eight ranging from something like business studies and economics where students are really developing a core knowledge of key concepts and key theories these two take quite an international perspective and a lot of what students are doing is they're they're studying theory and concepts and then they're actively trying to apply those to real life situations in the business world in economic systems so that they can then start to see how well the theories apply to these contexts and they can start to develop that critical sense in terms of politics again it's quite theoretical it starts quite in quite a kind of theoretical mode so against students are looking at fundamental political theories you know ranging around democracy liberal liberalism and then looking at some political systems like totalitarianism fascism and then going into other areas of political theory like feminism environmentalism as well and then again students have the have the opportunity through presentation of more kind of subjects around international relations and they're encouraged then to apply these theories to domestic and international political contexts Development Studies is a core subject within SOAS generally SOAS obviously is focused on the study of Africa Middle Eastern Asia and the Development Studies module is really giving students the a kind of basic understanding of the development process different aspects of the development process so it's what we would call quite a quite a multidisciplinary subject because it takes in economic issues and political and social issues and also cultural issues as well the the development of a society can have a significant impact on the cultures of those societies as well so it's really quite broad ranging in this approach Law in international society is really focusing on international law rather than any kind of national law and that's really so that students are not having to get too bogged down in you know for example English common law they're looking more conceptually at international law and how international law affects the legislation within countries but also it affects it has an impact on both countries but also individuals as well so it also takes into account things like human rights issues but also looking at at a national level use of force economic relations economic trade as well so again it's quite a broad ranging but it really does give students the chance to develop strong legal study skills. Media and communications again it's not it's not it's not a practical module it is more academic and more theoretical and I suppose the main questions that students are dealing with is is really looking at mass media contemporary mass media and communication and how contemporary mass media or media generally has shaped modern society so and this is particularly true I think over the last year or so the pandemic and how through lockdowns really everyone has been communicating everyone has been obtaining information and data through media and therefore it's it's very interesting for students to be able to think more about the the extent to which we are influenced by media and the development of media the power of media companies that power and influence both economic but also political and social and cultural power so again it's got some very big ideas that it's dealing with. World history is a history module but it's also what we could call a historiography module as well it's trying to get students to think about what it is to study history so some fundamental questions not just about history itself but the study of history and it's really looking at the last 600 years and again taking a global look at history and particularly at political the development of political and economic systems within that time but as I said before it's really also trying to get students to move away from a very traditional way of studying history and understand that history is very much to do with interpretation of the past and that history is subjective that it it doesn't really refer to things like historical facts there isn't really such a thing as a historical fact everything is interpreted by historians and therefore as history students the way students read history books has to be more subjective and to some extent students are encouraged not not necessarily to believe everything that they read in history books at face value. Finally world art and literature this is a very interesting module which gives students a combination of literary and artistic movements it introduces students to that and so as well as looking separately I mean it is taught separately so there are there are 10 weeks of world literature and then 10 weeks of world art and as well as but as well as studying those individually or separately students are also looking at the interconnection between them and looking at particular movements particular areas of the world and how art and literature are interconnected quite inextricably. So that gives you an idea of the the kinds of things that students study and now I want to just talk a bit more about actually how the students go about studying the workload and the assessment. So in terms of academic English sorry sorry we're starting with the academic modules as I've mentioned already there are students will have two different teachers for each of their modules they have a lecturer and they have a subject specific English support teacher working together and so the so the classes are a combination of these working together as well. So students will have a lecture each week for each module and a tutorial seminar discussion really seminar is really talking about small group discussion with the lecturer so students will be presented with ideas in the lecture and then they have to discuss these ideas and extend beyond the ideas in the lecture in the seminar discussion. They also have three hours of three hours of lecture review and subject specific reading and writing support and so this gives the student the chance to review the content of the lecture prior to the seminar discussion so they have the chance really to get a deeper understanding of the content of the lecture but also it gives students the chance to start to reflect more critically on the content as well and then there are subject specific reading and writing classes as well which focus on for example differences between how students are expected to write four different subjects if you are attending world art and literature you're going to have to write about art and literature in a very different way to students who might be studying introductory business studies or economics so it's very important for students to understand the different forms of expression whether that's written or verbal that they are expected to use within those subject areas and it also gives students the chance to develop the kind of reading skills that are necessary again at a subject specific level the way that students the way that people write about art and literature or about economics is very very different and therefore it's important for students to understand those differences so that they can start to read as effectively as possible and research through reading as effectively as possible as well. The academic English class is just there's a two hour writing class and a one hour speaking class per week and this is focusing more generically on academic writing and academic speaking writing focuses very much on essay writing and what will be regarded as a generic academic essay which is in fact very very different to what some students may have learned in IELTS for example IELTS is a very very different style of writing to how you actually how you're expected to write at university and the oracy class is focusing first of all on seminar discussions so to help students develop an understanding of how they're expected to participate in discussions which they which they do in their academic modules and also in the second half of the year academic presentation and so students will work in classes and in small groups but they will be individually starting to present ideas so that they can build up the confidence and an awareness of how presentations should be structured. Understanding the modern world is of course the third academic module that students take and again students will have a lecture and a tutorial from their lecturer and they will have two hours of lecture review based around the lectures that they're attending so that's four hours there is also a quite regular one-to-one engagement with different members of staff with lecturers themselves normally connected to the assignments that students are doing the assessed coursework that students are doing they also have engagement with their academic English teachers quite regularly just looking at the development of their English every student is given a personal tutor sometimes called an academic advisor and students can have one-to-one sessions with their personal tutor about more individual issues connected to their study or maybe connected to their practical life or maybe how their practical life might be influencing or having an impact on their studies so it's really important that students have somebody who they can go to to talk individually about those issues they might then be passed on to the students service or it might be actually a relatively simple thing to solve but can only really be solved through a discussion with somebody who's more familiar with the context there are also UCAS tutorials so obviously students at on the ICC foundation program will be going on to undergraduate study and therefore they have to make their undergraduate applications through the UCAS system and and so over the first term students develop their UCAS applications through small group and one-to-one meetings with specialist members of staff within our department in terms of the assessment students will have for their for their academic modules they will have terminally assignments so basically two assignments one for each term and those will normally include a written assignment but could include other formats like group presentations or individual presentations so or it could be a combination of a presentation with some kind of writing connected to it as well students will also develop the portfolio in their academic English module which will contain a number of kind of ongoing homework and coursework which they are doing and then there are final written and oral exams in terms of the academic modules it's all written in terms of academic English there is a written exam and there is an oral exam where students will deliver a presentation which is actually connected to their understanding the module so that there is a connection between what students are studying on that particular academic module and then how they are presenting their ideas in their own individual presentations as well so finally just to look at progression and where students go on to study at undergraduate level and I'm I'm pleased to say even with the the pandemic that the progression of our students was very strong this year as in previous years so in 2020 so this is students who completed their their ICC program this summer and now have now progressed to undergraduate study so students got offers from 25 different UK universities and and then in terms of progression actual progression in the end they progressed to 13 different universities the majority of students have stayed within the University of London and that's quite common so this year around about 80 percent of our students stayed within the University of London and that could be at SOAS or it could be at one of the other institutions so this year as well as progressing to SOAS we had students progressing to LSE, Kings, Queen Mary, City and Goldsmiths we would normally also have at least one student or two students progressing to UCL but I think this year students may be and certainly we got offers students got offers to study at UCL but maybe students decided to go elsewhere for whatever reason and we tried very hard to get students to think carefully not just in terms of the level of the institution but the suitability of the approach that that University might take to particular subjects and that sometimes can mean that students don't necessarily go to what they might what might be the predictable first choice because maybe they don't think it is suitable for them individually. Around the country students also progressed to Bath and Bristol Lancaster University of the Arts London Warwick Westminster in London again and York so again generally speaking they are progressing to high level universities either in London around the UK so just to get just to kind of drill down a bit further into the kinds of programs that they have gone on to study well at SOAS it's a it's a whole range you can see but I think the most probably the most popular subjects for our ICC students ICC Foundation students within the suite of undergraduate programs that SOAS offers I think economics is popular development studies as well although quite often it's in combination with other subjects history of arts is normally strong international relations and politics law management social anthropology languages you can see there's a student there who's going on to study social anthropology in Japanese last year we had students going on to study international relations and international relations and Chinese so the other thing you might notice there is there's a number of students who are taking combined honours courses so two different subject areas and again that's quite a common thing within SOAS not necessarily so common within other universities but it does mean that students do have the opportunity to maybe if they have a particular interest or a particular regional interest they can then look at it through two different subject focuses in terms of the rest of the students progressing outside of SOAS you can see there I hope actually I hope it isn't too small for you to see I just noticed how small it is on screen but again social science subjects management accounting and finance politics university of the arts again for things like fashion management Westminster is always a strong from marketing and and also a goldsmith for example they're not this year but normally a goldsmith students may well be progressing to goldsmiths to study a media and communications or media related subjects kings is also very popular for that as you can see culture media and creative studies so again a very wide range of different subjects that students go on to study their following year so just to finish off just to say that for SOAS students are students get guaranteed for the for the programs that they apply for that they apply for through UCAS before the mid-january deadline the UCAS the initial the first UCAS deadline is in mid-january so if students students on the ICC foundation program have applied for a SOAS subject a SOAS program in that by that initial deadline then they will get an automatic conditional offer there are some eligibility requirements but but only for a very that's normally for example mathematical requirements for particular types of programs like BSC economics rather than BA economics so so for the vast majority of programs students can can get a guaranteed conditional offer by studying on ICC and the offers will be conditional on them achieving a particular mark overall average mark in the in the in the academic modules of the program but also achieving a particular minimum academic English module as well as I mentioned already SOAS is the UCAS application process is supported by a team of staff within our department they're also teachers as well but they've developed a strong interest in and a deep a deep knowledge of the UCAS application process and so they're able to give clear guidance to our students well that's really all I wanted to present to you today I hope hopefully that's that gives you something to focus on if you do have any any questions then feel free to email me at the address there WH2 at soas.ac.uk and I'm more than happy to go into more detail if you if you want to talk to somebody about about progressing or going to or applying to foundation programs then again you can always arrange a meeting through teams or zoom or something like that anyway thank you very much for listening and watching this presentation and hopefully we might see some of you next September okay bye