HANDS-ON AT OTAGO

Chad:Where do I even start, on the drive back from Dunedin to here in Waimate, Cause there was so much we did, I spent the whole time talking only just about the first day! Hands-on to be completely honest, I wasn’t so sure of, I didn’t know what type of people there would be if the activities and projects/tasters would be any good. Needless to say, after spending a week there, it was hands down a week I’ll remember for the rest of my life! Everyone you met there, at least from my experience, was so friendly and very like-minded, after spending just a couple of minutes there you’ll make new friends! I’ve learnt so much about different subjects and, had my mind changed on so many of them, for example, I never would have thought that politics is something I might actually do alongside computer science. Alongside our main project, which is the subject you’ll be exposed to for the week every day, we had tasters. They were different for everyone but I had; Language, Politics, and International Business. 

Every professor/project leader made each one of those things a fun experience even if you had no prior or post-interest in the subject. Computer science was my main project, and every day we’d walk around the Department building talking to people who have been in that field for a long time to 2nd-year students, just to give us a good idea as to what to expect if we were to study computer science (which I sure am!). Alongside that, we were also given talks about the nuances of artificial intelligence, and we even got to play with these fancy robot dogs! We also were able to fly this drone with just your mind! Each day had an activity; Sports, Quizzes, A dance competition between the different floors of each building and the Big Night Out (party). 

The whole thing was so jam-packed, I found myself falling asleep very very late. The entire thing was an amazing experience, if you have the chance, I’d definitely recommend going to Hands-On!

Karys:Hands-on Otago was such an amazing experience. I met so many like-minded people and made so many friends. I was selected for the food science project and I found this very fascinating. We learned about the science behind ice cream as well as flavour science. 

This was interesting as we learnt why things taste the way they do and how our senses work together to give us the flavour we taste. During the week we made ice cream using both liquid nitrogen and an ice cream churner to freeze our products and got to experiment with the flavour we had chosen. Then we had to pitch our product to our project leaders like we were food scientists pitching ideas to big ice cream companies. My group made a s'more ice cream which was very well-liked by the rest of the project group. During the week we had a PhD student present to us telling us that her PHD was on the nutrition of insects and how they can be put into foods to make them less intimidating to eat. Then we got to try ice cream with ground-up cricket added and surprisingly it didn't taste bad. In the afternoons my tasters were Chemistry, Biochemistry and Sustainable business which I found engaging. 

Overall I had a great week and would recommend it to anyone thinking about going in the future.