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0:09
Nathan Davies: Good afternoon, everybody. Nathan Davies: Welcome. Nathan Davies: To this… this talk about the clinical and public health nutrition. Nathan Davies: MSc degree at UCL. Nathan Davies: We'll just give it a few more moments before we get started, just to let… Nathan Davies: Other people successfully log on.
0:34
Nathan Davies: If you have any questions, you should see a Q&A. Nathan Davies: Box that you can… Pop your questions into.
0:43
Nathan Davies: Please feel free to do so. Nathan Davies: And we will answer questions a little bit later during the talk.
1:10
Nathan Davies: Yeah, I can see people successfully logging in. We'll give it another… Nathan Davies: Minute, and then we'll get started.
1:48
Nathan Davies: Okay, let's… let's get started. Nathan Davies: So again, welcome everybody. Nathan Davies: Really nice to see, Well, to be joining this… Chat this afternoon. Nathan Davies: I'm gonna share my screen. Nathan Davies: So, you can see the slides I've prepared.
2:06
Nathan Davies: And just a very quick reminder. Nathan Davies: This session will be recorded, for viewing later. Nathan Davies: And sharing with other people. And once again, if you missed earlier, you will know that there's a Q&A box. You can pop any questions that you have. Nathan Davies: Into that, and we'll do my best to answer them for you a little bit later on.
2:26
Nathan Davies: So, to introduce myself, my name is Professor Nathan Davis, I am… lead for the MSE. Nathan Davies: clinical nutrition and Public Health. Nathan Davies: MSc at UCL, and I'm also the Director of Education for the Division of Medicine.
2:47
Nathan Davies: I'm sharing my screen now, hopefully you can all see just the title slide.
2:53
Nathan Davies: So, this is a talk that relates to the… 20… Nathan Davies: 26, entry for the Clinical Public Health Nutrition Masters Program at UCL.
3:10
Nathan Davies: Okay, let's get started.
3:15
Nathan Davies: So, first thing, would be why consider coming to UCL? Well, UCL is a great university. We are very highly regarded, and we had the distinction of being the University of the Year last year, in 2024. Nathan Davies: Also, next year, very exciting, in that 2026 is the 200th birthday of UCL, and there's going to be lots of extra events and lots of new facilities being put up around the university, which, of course, all our new students will benefit from.
3:47
Nathan Davies: A few of the… Nathan Davies: Facts and figures for you. So the first is that UCL is rated as one of the top universities in the world. We're currently ranked number 9 in the QS rankings. Nathan Davies: We are always in the top 10. Nathan Davies: And actually, the distinction between the top 20 universities is… Pretty minimal. Nathan Davies: They tend to sort of move around a little bit each year. But we've been in the top 10 for, I don't know how many years, a long, long time.
4:13
Nathan Davies: Also ranked for our research activity, and there's another scheme that ranks the university performance in terms of the papers that are published, and that's called the NTU ranking, and we are number 3 in the world this year for that. Nathan Davies: We've got an excellent staff-student ratio, which means that we have lots of staff. Nathan Davies: Available to… to help you with your studies?
4:36
Nathan Davies: And also, we are consistently high-performing in pretty much every metric and every lead table there is. We do very well in terms of research grant income, we've done very well from the European Union Horizon Scheme, and our graduates are also very well regarded when they leave UCL and they go off into the workplace, and they off Nathan Davies: They typically, on average, earn More money as starting salary than, graduates from other universities.
5:03
Nathan Davies: So, all that very positive, it's a very positive place to be, we have a very good pedigree, and our graduates do very well.
5:11
Nathan Davies: The other thing to note is that this particular degree scheme that we're talking about today is accredited by the Association for Nutrition. Nathan Davies: What this means is that our graduates are eligible to apply to join the Professional Register of Nutritionists. Nathan Davies: In the UK. Nathan Davies: And use the title, Nutritionist. Nathan Davies: And, initially, you can use the associate nutritionist letters after your name, which is a…
5:37
Nathan Davies: NUT, and after a couple years in practice, you can upgrade that to be a registered nutritionist, which is… have the letters R-N-U-T after your name.
5:50
Nathan Davies: This is a size a little bit old now. Nathan Davies: I was looking earlier to see if we have an updated one. Nathan Davies: But again, it just goes to show, man, this particular program has been running Nathan Davies: For about 18 years now, it's well regarded, we have a good intake every year, and our graduates come on to be very successful, and this just shows that Nathan Davies: from the last time we had an extensive survey, where I could find the data available. This was 2018.
6:15
Nathan Davies: that, the vast majority, nearly 95% of our students. Nathan Davies: At 18 months after leaving this particular course, have either gone on to a higher degree, further study, or were in, you know, high-quality employment.
6:32
Nathan Davies: So why is this good course to study? Why might you be interested in it? Nathan Davies: Well… The program is…
6:42
Nathan Davies: a holistic view of nutrition at all stages of life and with all health conditions. So, obviously, we want to know what nutrition is important for Nathan Davies: a normal, healthy life, or healthy living, healthy growth, healthy aging, but we also want to know what the importance of nutrition is in disease. You know, how poor nutrition leads to disease, and how nutrition is an important factor in actually recovering from illness and disease.
7:09
Nathan Davies: So, there are… number of causes. Nathan Davies: can result in malnutrition, but these can have massive impacts, both at the individual level and at the public health level. And this particular degree course looks at all areas of nutrition, both gain at the individual and also at the community and at sort of national levels as well. Nathan Davies: And we have got, you know, a large body of work in this area. We have a lot of researchers.
7:36
Nathan Davies: Who work, in these sort of fields, and they are able to come in and contribute to the course directly. Nathan Davies: UCL is a world leader in this area. Nathan Davies: And looking at all the different factors related to nutrition, obesity, malnutrition, child health, epidemiology, and also psychology related to eating and eating disorders.
7:59
Nathan Davies: The one thing it's not is that we're not a food science course. There are lots of other universities that do fantastic food science courses. If you want to look at, you know, learn all about making better products, improve shelf life. Nathan Davies: Mortification, all that type of thing. Nathan Davies: Those are great. This is not that course. We don't do food science at UCL. We only do, nutrition, and particularly nutrition related to clinical outcomes.
8:24
Nathan Davies: So why is nutrition important? Well, you know, the first thing is that we all have to eat. You know, we can't get away from it. It's something that we have to do. Nathan Davies: Every day of our lives. Because of this, and everybody does it, then, you know, everybody tends to think they're a bit of an expert at it as well. Nathan Davies: Unfortunately, you know, most people are
8:46
Nathan Davies: Looking at lots of misconceptions, and again, when they go to the internet, or they go to the media, or whatever else, they quite often get misinformation, and don't really know what to do with it.
8:59
Nathan Davies: But the thing you have to acknowledge is that what we eat will have a greater impact on you. Nathan Davies: On your health, on your lifespan, than anything else you do. Nathan Davies: Your diet will impact how you grow, how you develop, the likelihood that you will develop disease, and also it has Nathan Davies: A substantial impact on your overall lifespan. Nathan Davies: Not just about
9:23
Nathan Davies: How long you live, but how well you live as well, so the number of healthy years you have, as opposed to just the number of years.
9:33
Nathan Davies: And we look at all these different aspects, so overnutrition, undernutrition, and malnutrition. And malnutrition is just wrong nutrition. I mean, there's plenty of instances out there of, you know, things that we would call hidden hunger. We have people who have sufficient calories, and maybe even excess of calories in the daily intake.
9:50
Nathan Davies: But the other nutritional components of their diet are poor and missing, and so they can end up with, you know, nutritional deficiency-related conditions. Nathan Davies: Now, all of these factors, overnutrition, unnutrition, and malnutrition, will cause, or are linked to, premature mortality, but also linked to the development of non-communicable diseases.
10:15
Nathan Davies: Now, as you also point out, that, you know, this is a new area for us. You know, we have been looking at nutrition at UCL for a very long time.
10:24
Nathan Davies: So, in the picture here, you can see, Nathan Davies: a fellow whose name was, Jack Drummond, and he was…
10:31
Nathan Davies: working at UCL, nearly 100 years ago, and he was UCL's first professor of biochemistry. And he was famous for lots of reasons. Nathan Davies: Particularly famous because he was the first person to work out the structure of vitamin A. Nathan Davies: Which in itself was a major achievement, but what he was more famous for… was this.
10:52
Nathan Davies: And some of you may be able to identify what this is, but his… at the… at the start of the Second World War, there were concerns from the UK government Nathan Davies: That we wouldn't be able to feed the country. Nathan Davies: And so, it was…
11:10
Nathan Davies: Realized that it was necessary to create a system that became the rationing system to ensure that everybody had the right amount of, you know, nutrition, the essential elements of a diet in order to keep them healthy.
11:23
Nathan Davies: And so the government came to Jack Drummond and his team and asked them to devise a system Nathan Davies: That would ensure we had a diet that would maintain their health for however long the war would go on for. And this is it, and it looks pretty… Nathan Davies: poor, actually, by today's standards, when you look at it, and you can see that there is sugar, and there is fat, and…
11:49
Nathan Davies: There's bacon and butter and cheese, and the meat on there, again, as was more common for the time, the meat has also got, you know, a large mix of fat in there. Nathan Davies: Now, we won't look at that now with a, you know… Nathan Davies: A slight element of shock, think that that's not a healthy diet. Nathan Davies: But you have to realize that that was the,
12:09
Nathan Davies: the elements and the diets that were in the ration would have to be spread out over a week, okay? That's not a day's consumption, that's a whole week's consumption, and when you spread that out a little bit every day. Nathan Davies: And the key thing, Is that that diet was supplemented with unlimited amounts of fruit and vegetables. Nathan Davies: People grew their own, but also there weren't rations or quotas on vegetables that they could buy.
12:30
Nathan Davies: And so when you take this diet, and you supplement it with a large amount of fruit and vegetables, and also beans, pulses, all that type of thing as well, it actually became very healthy. Nathan Davies: And it's not an exaggeration to say that, you know, if we could reintroduce the ration system today, we would actually go a long way to sorting out a lot of the UK's nutritional needs.
12:54
Nathan Davies: No… Nathan Davies: Malnutrition is a problem. Malnutrition is a problem on lots of levels. For the individual, it is very certainly a problem in their health, but also it affects society as a whole. So, if we look at malnutrition, and we can see there was a… this was published by the King's Fund last year, which is an influential think tank in the UK, Nathan Davies: So the cost of treating someone who's malnourished is around 3 times the cost of treating someone who is not.
13:18
Nathan Davies: This is a particular concern because we know that around about a third of people who come into hospital for treatment are malnourished at the point of entry. Nathan Davies: So, estimates suggest that malnutrition may cost the healthcare system as much as Nathan Davies: 22.6 billion a year. That is in addition… To the costs of… Nathan Davies: The treatment costs that people would have had otherwise.
13:43
Nathan Davies: So, if a third of people require three times as much cost, we're effectively doubling the healthcare costs. Nathan Davies: For a large number of people. Nathan Davies: You can also see here that malnourished people will visit their GPs more, greater risk of complications of illnesses, more likely in hospital and care home admission. They're also less likely to be able to hold their own steady employment.
14:05
Nathan Davies: Other things we look at in the course, and other things that are of concern to society as a whole, is that obesity is rising, but particularly childhood obesity is rising. Nathan Davies: You can see here, in this figure, this was, from the Nuffield Trust, and again was published last year. Nathan Davies: the…
14:24
Nathan Davies: green and red bars, essentially the bottom two bars on this particular figure here, it's steadily tracking upwards, and they've been steadily tracking upwards for about the last 20 years. There's a slight bump in the COVID year of 2021, Nathan Davies: But that sort of settled back down again, but even then, that's still increased. And so we're now at the point where we have got over a third Nathan Davies: Of children are either overweight or obese.
14:50
Nathan Davies: And that is stacking up health issues for later in life.
14:57
Nathan Davies: Overall, obesity, as I said, is a major issue for the country, and the Nathan Davies: more recent estimates, this was published, in national newspapers, a selection of national newspapers. I've just picked out one here in July this year, yeah, July this year, and this shows that the greater cost to society of obesity are now in the region of £126 billion a year.
15:23
Nathan Davies: And the government have said recently that, as a leading cause of multiple long-term conditions, including cardiovascular disease and cancer, obesity is estimated to cost the NHS over $11.4 billion every year, with wide societal costs estimated to be
15:38
Nathan Davies: $75 billion. Nathan Davies: It's, you know, it's a major drain on the country as a whole, and it is an area of concern.
15:49
Nathan Davies: Also, when we consider things like obesity, we're looking to other non-communical diseases. We've mentioned cardiovascular disease and cancer in the last slide, but also it has an impact on obesity, on diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes, which is related to obesity, although it isn't Nathan Davies: always the case. And we have our, you know, our cute picture here of a…
16:07
Nathan Davies: A baby puzzling over this, and says, the more I think, the more confused I get, because it's not true that everybody who is obese Nathan Davies: Will have diabetes, or will develop diabetes in the future. Nathan Davies: And also, we still have people who are…
16:24
Nathan Davies: Generally considered to be of a normal body weight, or have the appearance of being of a normal body weight, but will also develop diabetes. Nathan Davies: And it's complicated, you know, we're… the fat deposits in the body, visceral fat, the fat around organs, has a more…
16:37
Nathan Davies: substantial impact on overall health than subcutaneous fat. It depends on your age, depends on hormone levels, it depends on any pre-existing conditions. There's all sorts of factors that go into it. Nathan Davies: But diabetes is a problem. As you can see here, it has been steadily increasing over the last 10 years, and as you can see in the next slide, you can see that it is projected to continue to increase.
17:01
Nathan Davies: Over the next 25 years. So, you can see here that, in this graph on the left, the forecast. Nathan Davies: is that… Nathan Davies: The world population will increase over the next 25 years, so it will be from about 8 billion, where we are now, up to about nearly 10 billion by 2050, but also the proportion of people will continue to increase. Nathan Davies: And we could be as much as 12% of the population having… of the global population living with diabetes by 2050.
17:34
Nathan Davies: Which gives us, you know, in excess of a billion people living with diabetes, which is a phenomenal number.
17:43
Nathan Davies: So, in addition to… Nathan Davies: just having lectures, talking about facts, you know, talking through the metabolism of diet and the impact on health. We do lots of other things on the course as well, so you can see some examples here.
17:57
Nathan Davies: In this one, we've got some of the students doing labs, looking at body composition, looking at, calorie, usage doing energy expenditure studies. We've also got some students there, visiting one of our partner hospitals and tasting, sort of, hospital food. Nathan Davies: there's lots of things that go on, we have lots of speakers coming in. I think one of the key things to say Nathan Davies: boats. Nathan Davies: UCL, the way we run our course, is that we have
18:23
Nathan Davies: partnerships and opportunities that are not really available elsewhere. So, for example, on this particular course, we, in Term 2, we organize for all of our students to have the opportunity. Nathan Davies: to go and do observer visits in our hospitals. They will go with ward rounds, they will join our clinical teams, and they will get to see what nutrition looks like in hospital, in the clinical interface.
18:48
Nathan Davies: We also have, you know, great researchers, essentially the people at UCL, who write the books that, you know, the rest of the world refer to.
18:56
Nathan Davies: So we don't have… there's no point with me trying to lecture everything on the course. I can talk about, obviously, things I know well. Nathan Davies: But if we're talking about intensive care medicine and intensive care nutrition, then I will get, you know, the world-leading specialist who runs our intensive care unit to come and give that talk. You know, when we talk about pediatric and neonatal nutrition.
19:16
Nathan Davies: We'll get the world experts from Great Ormond Street to come and, you know, give those lectures and handle those tutorials. So, we have a fantastic resource of people that we can bring in who are genuine world experts in the field in order to teach our students.
19:34
Nathan Davies: So, there are some degree benefits, just to talk a little bit more generally about it, and the first is that, you know, we have Nathan Davies: you know, a fantastic course. You get a really thorough understanding in nutrition science, in metabolism, in understanding how nutrition interacts with the body. Nathan Davies: How it works in health, and how it works in disease.
19:52
Nathan Davies: We'll talk about personal diet, we'll talk about, you know, all the different stages throughout life, and the changing requirements that, you know, your body has for nutrition. And also how disease occurs, and how nutrition interacts with that.
20:08
Nathan Davies: We have this holistic approach that will give you a really good understanding of both obesity and malnutrition. Nathan Davies: In one world, the way that society is developing, and the way that, you know, governments and authorities will try to intervene. The societal approaches, the population approaches, and also the individual approaches to try and combat these conditions.
20:34
Nathan Davies: And we also more broadly equip all our students with, you know, essential skills that they need for life.
20:41
Nathan Davies: And for developing a career, so you get good public speaking skills, you get good presentation skills, you learn to analyze data, you learn to write, you learn, you know, good critical analysis, which is a really important aspect of the course. So then, whatever you go on to do, if you want to go on and work in healthcare, if you want to go and work in further research, if you want to do, you know.
21:01
Nathan Davies: something completely different. You will have a core set of skills that future employers will value.
21:08
Nathan Davies: And I'll come back to it again and say that we are, you know, experts in this. You know, UCL is a world leader in the area surrounding this course, and we offer a large variety of expert teaching across all aspects of it. Nathan Davies: The other thing we have is great research opportunities, so you, at the end of the course.
21:25
Nathan Davies: Everybody does a research dissertation, and we're able to place our students into research groups and research teams in our partner hospitals that mean they get to do some, you know, some great, exciting, hands-on research, if they want to. Other people would rather do a project that is more data analysis, more systematic review, that type of thing. We've got those opportunities as well.
21:46
Nathan Davies: So, how we teach the course, just a very brief overview. The course is split into 8 modules over 2 terms. Nathan Davies: We teach Wednesdays and Fridays. They're busy days, we pack a lot in. So, on a Wednesday, the first half of Term 1, you would go through Fundamentals and Nutrition and Disease. This essentially is the core module that everyone gets to, upskill themselves on.
22:13
Nathan Davies: Nutrition, metabolism, all that sort of biochemistry stuff. There's a reasonable amount that we incorporate in here. Nathan Davies: the main point of this is to bring everybody up to, you know, the sort of similar standard, because we know we have people that come in from different backgrounds. So, some of it, you know, if you've done a
22:29
Nathan Davies: biochemical, biomedical, nutrition, first degree. You'll, you know, repeating work you've done before. For others, it'll be new, but, you know, it's… it's there to make sure that you know all the key stuff for the later modules. Nathan Davies: The second half. Nathan Davies: of term one, on Wednesdays, you do a module that's called Disease-Rate Malnutrition. So in the first one, Fundamentals, we really look at him
22:52
Nathan Davies: Metabolism is supposed to work, or the second half of the term, we start looking at where it goes wrong and how this leads to disease. Nathan Davies: On Fridays, we run these two modules in tandem, all the way through the term, research methods and practical intuition assessment. Nathan Davies: These are all about how we gather information, how we analyze diet, how we analyze individuals, we do anthropometry, we do energy expenditure, we look at
23:18
Nathan Davies: Research skills, we look at ethics, we look at planning clinical trials, we look at ethical dilemmas, we also consider different ways of gathering data. Nathan Davies: Both qualitatively and quantitatively. Nathan Davies: And how you do the analysis in each case. Nathan Davies: Then in Term 2, on Wednesdays, the first half of the term, we do therapeutic aspects and nutrition. This is a very clinically focused module.
23:43
Nathan Davies: We have lots of people that come in from our partner hospitals to talk about nutrition in the hospital and how it's achieved. Nathan Davies: Both as oral nutrition, and as also as, you know, parenteral or intravenous nutrition. Nathan Davies: Second half of Term 2 on Wednesdays, we have Nutrition and Public Health. This looks at, you know, society. Nathan Davies: It looks at the interventions that are tried, and it also has some elements of sustainability in there as well.
24:09
Nathan Davies: On Fridays, the first half of the term is malnutrition in the community. This looks at the way that communities and organizations organize nutrition, so we look at schools, look at hospitals, look at care homes, look at prisons, look at all sorts of aspects. We look at the way charities work. Nathan Davies: The way that, people are introducing supports, for homeless. We also look at, sort of, wider scale, sort of, catering organizations as well.
24:38
Nathan Davies: And then the last module on Fridays in Term 2 is Disease and Sword Eating. This is another clinical module, and again, looks at, sort of, specific areas within, clinical support networks, you know. Nathan Davies: And we, again, have a lot of clinical academics and clinical partners coming in to sort of teach on this.
25:00
Nathan Davies: Last thing to note is that every single one of our students will do a dissertation, as I mentioned earlier. Nathan Davies: There are opportunities to do… Nathan Davies: pretty much anything you like. You know, it always has to relate back to nutrition in some way, but…
25:14
Nathan Davies: If you want to do a project in a laboratory, working with cell culture, yeah, that's possible. If you want to do something where we have a lot of people who do sports-themed projects, we do projects… we've had students who do projects with, dancers and their nutritional needs. We do quite a lot with clinics. We have opportunities to place Nathan Davies: students in projects in one of our partner hospitals. These are just some… I think we have something like about
25:38
Nathan Davies: I can't remember exactly how many partner hospitals we have, but these four are very closely, Nathan Davies: Linked with the course.
25:47
Nathan Davies: If you want to do stuff in the community, we do stuff with food banks, we do stuff with charities, there's lots and lots of opportunities for Nathan Davies: For the research project.
25:58
Nathan Davies: As it says here, we regularly place students within the research departments.
26:03
Nathan Davies: And every year, we come up with, you know. Nathan Davies: Literally hundreds of projects for our students.
26:10
Nathan Davies: On the same time, if you come to us and say, I really want to do a project in this particular area, and we can make a link for you, and we can work this out, then you can organize a bespoke project for yourself as well.
26:23
Nathan Davies: Last slide here is about how we do our teaching. We teach… obviously, we have lectures. Nathan Davies: lots of lectures, but that's not the only way we do things these days. We have workshops, we have tutorials, we have some flip sessions where you watch, you know, the lectures first, and then you come and do a tutorial based on it. Nathan Davies: We do some peer instruction stuff, we do a lot of problem-based learning, we have computer classes, we use online tools, software.
26:50
Nathan Davies: We do a lot of case study work, we will do practical sessions, as I've mentioned. Nathan Davies: And have lots of, you know, listening speakers come in as well. So… It's not. Nathan Davies: a course where you just come in, sit in a room, take notes week after week after week. There's a lot going on, there's a lot of interaction that we require from our students, a lot of engagement we require from our students as well.
27:15
Nathan Davies: So, I'm gonna stop there, I'm gonna stop the share. Nathan Davies: I'm going to open up the questions and see what you have for us. Nathan Davies: Okay, so… First question. Nathan Davies: is… are there any research assistantship or similar research opportunities at UCL? Nathan Davies: I would say that… Yes, we do have some of these, however,
27:44
Nathan Davies: the program that we run for our master's students, all the master's programs we run in the Division of Medicine, are quite intense. Nathan Davies: You know, we only teach on two days a week, however, the expectation is that the other days in the week, you are doing the assessments, you are organizing to meet people because you'll be in group projects, you are doing the reading, you are revising.
28:07
Nathan Davies: You should consider it to be about the same amount of time as you'd normally spend in a job, you know?
28:14
Nathan Davies: So, if you're doing it right, and you're covering all the work, then there's not a massive amount of time in order to do other things as well. We do know that some people manage part-time jobs as well. Fine, if you can do that, great, that's no problem at all. Nathan Davies: But if you think about the way that the structure of the course is, by the time you start at the end of September. Nathan Davies: You'll be very busy all the way up to the end of the year.
28:40
Nathan Davies: For teaching in Term 1. Teaching in Term 2 will start, you know, usually about the second week of January. That's very busy, right the way up to the Easter break. Nathan Davies: You'd come back after Easter break, there'd be some assessments in there, but then you'd be doing your dissertation project full-time as well. And your dissertation project, if you want to do something, you know.
28:59
Nathan Davies: With hands-on research, in a laboratory or something else, you'll be doing that anyway. Nathan Davies: So, the require… well then… The need or the opportunity to do an additional research, a citizenship.
29:12
Nathan Davies: You know, we haven't found it type of thing works very well, and we wouldn't really recommend it.
29:20
Nathan Davies: Okay, is there any hospital training? There's not hospital training as such, but we do have visits. Nathan Davies: to our partner hospitals, as I mentioned earlier, these are observerships, so you will get to sit in the clinic, you will get to join a ward round, you will get to work with dietitians, or clinicians, or, you know, some of the other AHP staff.
29:43
Nathan Davies: And engage with them, and you can book onto multiple trips, look at different things, and ask as many questions as you like. Nathan Davies: But it's not formal training, but it's an opportunity for you to see how nutrition is handled in the clinic.
29:59
Nathan Davies: How many students the program accepts every year? That varies a little bit. We are generally on clinical and public health nutrition, somewhere between about 45 and 65 students every year.
30:12
Nathan Davies: It varies a little bit depending on. Nathan Davies: a number of factors, but that's about the size of the course. For a master's program, it's quite a large course.
30:26
Nathan Davies: What's the ratio of applicants accepted? Nathan Davies: In estimation. Nathan Davies: I can honestly say that I don't know offhand.
30:37
Nathan Davies: I mean, we do get quite a lot of applications.
30:41
Nathan Davies: And what I would say is that… Nathan Davies: If you're… if you meet the entry criteria, and your personal statement did good, so, you know, and you give a… Nathan Davies: what I would say to everybody is don't… please don't Google. Nathan Davies: how do I write a personal statement, or AI generate a personal statement, because they sort of stand out, like a sort of,
31:02
Nathan Davies: What we really want, we'd much rather see a shorter personal statement that comes from you, that is focused. Nathan Davies: And really conveys, you know, your interest in the subject area. Nathan Davies: That's what we want to see. So, meet the entry criteria, good personal statement, and it is very, very highly likely that we would make you an offer.
31:24
Nathan Davies: Okay, I have a BSc in Psychology, am I still eligible to apply? Nathan Davies: Yeah, absolutely. No problem at all. Nathan Davies: We regularly accept people with psychology backgrounds onto the course. What we would generally do is send you a reading list ahead of time, just so you could look at some of the texts that we use in the course in order to get a bit of a head start on some of the metabolism.
31:49
Nathan Davies: Books that we recommend are really very good. If you read through those, maybe do a few of the exercises. Nathan Davies: you'll be fine, actually. Quite often, you know, our psychology students are, you know, are really quite strong on the course, and they don't have any issue with not having a background in Nathan Davies: The metabolism and body chemistry at the beginning.
32:12
Nathan Davies: What sort of funding options are available for master's students? This… Nathan Davies: It will very much depend on… Nathan Davies: Where you are, where you come from, the… Nathan Davies: there… there are some opportunities. If you search on the UCL website, and look at the scholarship… can't say the word… scholarships and bursary page, you'll find that there are some… Nathan Davies: scholarships are available for everyone to apply to. There are others that are…
32:39
Nathan Davies: Country-specific or discipline-specific. So you may have… you may be eligible to apply for those. Nathan Davies: If you're a UK-based student, then the Student Loads Company will lend
32:51
Nathan Davies: Money to the students who want to do postgraduate degrees.
32:56
Nathan Davies: the… There is… I can see that, Nathan Davies: One of my colleagues just popped to the… Nathan Davies: the address for scholarships into the chat. I'll see if I can share that with you as well in a moment.
33:13
Nathan Davies: And there are also, again, depending on if you come from, Nathan Davies: Other countries, depending on the country you come from, there are other opportunities to look for as well. Nathan Davies: British Council has some sort of scholarships that are available, and also there are national scholarships that potentially people could apply to.
33:34
Nathan Davies: Okay, I'm interested in studying a master's program at UCL that covers nutrition, exercise, and eating disorders. Could you advise me on which course are you the most suitable?
33:44
Nathan Davies: Well, that's a good question. Nathan Davies: The Clinical and Public Health Nutrition Clause does cover all of those elements. Nathan Davies: We do cover nutrition, we do cover elements of eating disorders, and exercise, and edge expenditure. Nathan Davies: Is part of the course as well, and we do have… we do have a… Nathan Davies: Several lectures that relate to, sort of, sports nutrition, and physiology.
34:07
Nathan Davies: But we also offer a master's program specifically in the eating disorder, so that was a particular area that you're interested in. Nathan Davies: We also have another master's program in obesity and clinical nutrition, which also may be an area that you're interested in. Nathan Davies: One of the good things that we do offer, though, is because all these courses, are part of the same portfolio, and they're related, we have the opportunity to switch between programs.
34:30
Nathan Davies: So, if you were to come in, for example, on the Eating Source Program and wish to switch to public health nutrition, or vice versa. Nathan Davies: You know, within the first, term, making that switch across, particularly in the first half of the first term. Nathan Davies: We can organize those transfers very quickly.
34:51
Nathan Davies: What's the most common form of assessment? Oh, that's… like I said, the different types of assessment, so we have some essays, we have some multiple choice examinations, we have some short answer questions. Nathan Davies: We do several computer-based assessments, we have some… a poster presentation, we have…
35:10
Nathan Davies: Videos that you have to make.
35:15
Nathan Davies: What else do we have? We have quite a few presentations of different types. Nathan Davies: Obviously, we have the dissertation, which is a, you know, 10,000 word project at the end of the course.
35:29
Nathan Davies: What else do we have in there? We have some things we have to write. Abstracts…
35:36
Nathan Davies: So, as those buyers, which one of those, off the top of my head, is the most common? I'm not too sure. Nathan Davies: I'd have to count up to see, but… Nathan Davies: We have a large variety of assessments, is what I'm trying to say, rather than it just being one type or another.
35:53
Nathan Davies: What are the entry requirements? The entry requirements for this course are… is a 2-1 undergraduate degree in irrelevant. Nathan Davies: first degree, although we are pretty broad on the relevant first degree criteria. If you're in any doubt as to what that might be, feel free to drop us a line, and we'll ask you to say what it is. Nathan Davies: We also take into account.
36:19
Nathan Davies: sort of professional training as well. So, you know, if you've had a degree, but then had some professional experience in a relevant area, we'll consider that.
36:29
Nathan Davies: As part of the entry criteria. If you have any particular questions, please, please feel free to drop us a line, or give us a call, and we will give you some individual feedback on that.
36:40
Nathan Davies: There's a large overlap between the nutrition… the modules, this course and the modules, and the BSC Nutrition? Nathan Davies: I would say… That the thematic areas are… Nathan Davies: Broadly similar in lots of cases. Nathan Davies: However, when you go to a master's level, the depth that we cover them in is greater
37:00
Nathan Davies: and the… the requirement for, sort of, critical analysis is also greater. So… Yes, you might learn about…
37:11
Nathan Davies: Let's see, something around the life cycle, nutrition life cycle. Nathan Davies: An undergraduate degree, as part of an undergraduate degree, but… Nathan Davies: At a master's level, the expectation is that you take that to a higher level.
37:27
Nathan Davies: Okay, I just applied my request to program a few days ago. Was it considered late? No, we are accepting applications for this program. Nathan Davies: Through 2… sometime around…
37:41
Nathan Davies: April, I think? Maybe even a little bit later, I can't remember exactly what our final date is. Nathan Davies: But, no, you're certainly not late at the moment. In fact, you know, a lot of people Nathan Davies: We'll only just be thinking about making their applications at the moment.
37:55
Nathan Davies: So, you have plenty of time yet.
37:59
Nathan Davies: Would you consider an applicant with a physics BSc? I think yes, is the simple answer. We would consider it, but, you know, I think we'd want to have a little bit, maybe get in touch with us. Nathan Davies: Have a bit of a chat and perhaps tell us about, you know, if you have any other experience as well, maybe you have a little bit of volunteering experience, a little bit of,
38:17
Nathan Davies: something else that you've been doing that shows that you have a little bit more, had a bit more interaction with nutrition or metabolism as well. But in principle, yes, I think, you know, we have had people with quite a diverse background. We take it on a case-by-case basis. Nathan Davies: But, you know, please get in touch, and we can have a one-to-one chat.
38:38
Nathan Davies: Could you give us some examples of lab-based practicals we would do? So, Nathan Davies: The two main particles that take place that we're running in Term 1 at the moment.
38:50
Nathan Davies: One of those is on energy expenditure, so the way this works is that Nathan Davies: You, as a student population, undertake these yourself. You will do… undertake, Nathan Davies: exercise at various levels, from lying down, through sitting, standing, cycling and exercise bikes, and so on, and then doing cool-down periods, things afterwards. And then we'll do…
39:12
Nathan Davies: what's called indirect calorimetry, to measure the amount of CO2 in your breath at the different levels, and the different activities, and quantify, then, the amount of energy expenditure. We sort of teach you how to do that. Nathan Davies: The other one that we would… Nathan Davies: do in this term would be anthropometry, where we will show you lots of different ways of measuring body composition, with skinfold calipers, with tape measures, using BIA devices, and so on.
39:38
Nathan Davies: And looking to see how they, Compare in terms of accuracy.
39:47
Nathan Davies: Hopefully that's answered that particular question. If the application's submitted, how long it takes to receive the offer? Nathan Davies: That can be a little bit variable. It sort of generally depends on… Nathan Davies: The main hold-up is usually referees.
40:05
Nathan Davies: So, when you submit your application, the application goes into the central administration system, they will then contact your referees. Nathan Davies: and ask them to supply your references. Once your reference is supplied and all, you know, your transcripts and things have been entered into, the decision made pretty quickly. Nathan Davies: More often than not, we wait for referees to send in their, Send in their answers.
40:30
Nathan Davies: But in general, Gotcha. Nathan Davies: I would say that, you know, 4 or 5 weeks is probably a reasonable sort of time. Nathan Davies: Usually that's what takes everything back and to get the referees to submit their answers. Nathan Davies: it can be delayed longer than that. Again, it's usually not our, it's not down to us, it's usually down to… Nathan Davies: Not having all the response… the responses back.
40:56
Nathan Davies: Okay, what do you consider someone in neuroscience BSc and clinical research for experiencing chronic pain? Yes, it's the simple answer. Nathan Davies: we would… happily consider… That, Nathan Davies: Again, if you want to talk a little bit more about it, please get in touch. Nathan Davies: I'm not sure whether or not you can see the chat. Nathan Davies: Answers being put up.
41:21
Nathan Davies: But the… If you can't see the chat, we have a central admin team Nathan Davies: contact address, but you'll also find that on the UCL website as well, if you look on the prospectus page on the website. Nathan Davies: Then you will, Nathan Davies: You have the opportunity. If you look on there, you'll see the contact addresses, and you can drop us a line from there.
41:45
Nathan Davies: We're also having, in the notes just appeared in the chat, We have got an in-person. Nathan Davies: Graduate event tomorrow evening. Nathan Davies: That's taking place that will be held at the Institute of Child Health in London, which is
42:02
Nathan Davies: very close to Great Ormond Street.
42:06
Nathan Davies: Hopefully, you can see the chat at the moment, and you can see there's a link there if you would like to register and attend. Nathan Davies: Do you do wet lab practicals? No, we don't do wet lab practicals on this particular course. However, if this is a particular area you're interested in. Nathan Davies: then you… Would have the opportunity to select a research project that would have Wet lab.
42:35
Nathan Davies: wetlands as part of the course, as part of the project, I should say.
42:40
Nathan Davies: You know, the projects are very clearly laid out. Nathan Davies: And if that's something you particularly want to do some basic research, then the opportunity will be there for you.
42:51
Nathan Davies: The best number to call, again, that's on the website. I think, generally speaking, the best thing to do is drop us an email, include a number, and give us a time, and we will call you back. Nathan Davies: Trouble putting numbers on there is that, Nathan Davies: Depending when you call, if you don't get an answer, it can be a little bit… Nathan Davies: A little bit awkward, but we're very happy for you to drop us a line, include a number and a time.
43:13
Nathan Davies: And we would, we would get back to you. We'll organize a time for a call.
43:18
Nathan Davies: Okay, if my reference is also submitted, after that it will take 4 to 5 weeks. It does depend a little bit on the time of year, on the volume of applications that,
43:30
Nathan Davies: That our team are handling at the time.
43:34
Nathan Davies: what I would say is, usually, once we have your references, and you upload. Nathan Davies: Your degree certificates, document, all the rest of it. Nathan Davies: Onto the admission system.
43:46
Nathan Davies: each year, I would say it's less than 4 to 5 weeks, you know, a couple of weeks, possibly, once the references are in. Nathan Davies: In fact, once the reference is in, usually it's a very quick turnaround for the decision at that point. Nathan Davies: It's usually 4-5 weeks because it takes us quite a while for the referees to respond. Nathan Davies: More often than not.
44:06
Nathan Davies: Okay, I don't know if I wasn't able to…
44:10
Nathan Davies: to let me know whether or not you can see the chat as part of this conversation. You are able to see the links in the chat?
44:20
Nathan Davies: So, I think under Sony Hosts and Panelists, they can see this.
44:25
Nathan Davies: Let me see if I can… Pop these into…
44:36
Nathan Davies: Okay.
44:39
Nathan Davies: Might have to try and put this here…
44:56
Nathan Davies: Okay, I'm gonna pop these messages onto the screen over here.
45:06
Nathan Davies: Hopefully.
45:08
Nathan Davies: I think, actually, you won't be able to at the moment, because,
45:24
Nathan Davies: This is the…
45:31
Nathan Davies: Email that,
45:46
Nathan Davies: This is the email address you need in order to… to contact us.
45:54
Nathan Davies: Well, someone just said they can see the channel.
45:59
Nathan Davies: Okay, fantastic, right. I'll turn this off then.
46:04
Nathan Davies: Okay,
46:09
Nathan Davies: Are there any lectures in the labs?
46:15
Nathan Davies: No, not strictly speaking, although when we talk about labs, we talk about a number of different places, so… although we do talk about… Nathan Davies: Things you would normally look at as laboratories. Nathan Davies: When we have the practical sessions in there, we also deliver guidance and talks in there, but we also have a number of computer-based sessions. Nathan Davies: sort of PC labs, computer labs, if you want to call them those, and we do quite a lot of teaching.
46:39
Nathan Davies: In there, which is compute-based learning, along with, you know, specialist software, apps, and things like that, that you will work along with.
46:48
Nathan Davies: Throughout the sessions, so… You know, many, many types of… many lectures, and we have that sort of format. Nathan Davies: We don't tend to teach laboratories, we've got lots of lecture theatres and classrooms and workshops, things like that, that we do the formal teaching in.
47:05
Nathan Davies: You mentioned something about going to hospitals and clinical settings, so this is something we offer to our students in the second term. Nathan Davies: We provide lists of observerships that you can, register to attend. Nathan Davies: So, we produce lists, it's on our teaching website, you click onto those, you book into one you like to see. Nathan Davies: And then you can book on, you know, more visits as the term progresses.
47:31
Nathan Davies: So, for example, if you wish to attend one of the diabetes clinics, you can attend that and see how those are run. If you want to attend a ward round.
47:42
Nathan Davies: Maybe when the surgical ward rounds, or maybe when the sort of specialist teams, kidney teams, liver teams, things like that, you can join a ward round with them. Nathan Davies: And go into the hospital, and, you know, and then… Nathan Davies: Obviously, observe everything that goes on, and spend time asking the clinical staff any questions you may have afterwards.
48:04
Nathan Davies: Okay.
48:06
Nathan Davies: I'm not sure we have… I think that's the end of the questions currently on the list.
48:12
Nathan Davies: is the… Anything else that you would like to ask?
48:18
Nathan Davies: Or anything else?
48:20
Nathan Davies: that I haven't covered already.
48:31
Nathan Davies: No? Okay, well, in that case… Nathan Davies: I would like to thank you all very much for attending this afternoon. Hopefully you found it interesting, and hopefully we were able to Nathan Davies: Answer any of the questions that you've put in. Nathan Davies: And, if you're able to join us tomorrow in person, for the live event that, to be held at the Institute of Child Health.
48:50
Nathan Davies: It'd be great to see you, you're very welcome. And otherwise, then, if you'd love to get in touch, please use the contact details we provided, drops a line, and we can answer any individual questions, and also organise a call with you, if that would be helpful. Nathan Davies: And hopefully, we'll be looking forward to seeing you join us next year, so… Nathan Davies: If you do, that'd be great, very much look forward to it, and again.
49:13
Nathan Davies: Thank you for your time and interest in joining the session today. Take care.
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