Introduction from the Faculty Executive Dean, Professor Ajay Shah
Welcome to the new academic year at King’s! We are absolutely delighted that you have chosen to embark on or continue your studies with us in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, and hope that you will quickly feel part of our thriving community and excited to make the most of the myriad of opportunities available to you.
As a Faculty, we are proud to be developing the next generation of health professionals, researchers and scientists, and are fortunate to have a dedicated and highly experienced team of colleagues who encourage all our students to grow as critical, curious and agile thinkers, and empower them to make a positive contribution to society.
As Executive Dean, my role is to hold overall responsibility for the Faculty’s delivery of excellent education, training and research, and to boost our local, national and global impact. This includes making sure that you receive the outstanding teaching, support and academic challenge you would expect from a world-class institution. Regular interaction and individual support is what matters most to our students, and we are committed to ensuring this remains central to our educational provision.
I wish you all the best for the academic year ahead.
Introduction from the Dean of Bioscience Education, Professor Helen Collins
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It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the School of Bioscience Education at King’s. To those returning after the break, welcome back and I hope you had a great summer and to those new to the university, many congratulations on gaining your place at King’s.
Our aim is to enable you to achieve your full potential and develop into critical-thinking graduates who strive to make the make the world a better place. In achieving our aims, we will stretch you, and at times you will find what we are asking of you challenging. For those of you new to King’s, this will include the challenges that come with being in a new environment and developing the independent learning skills you will need as a university student. But please do not be daunted by this; you would not be here if we were not confident that you had the ability to succeed, and our task is to work with you to ensure you do just that.
This is very much a team effort. Our responsibility is to provide you with the modules, skills and support you need to excel in your chosen degree course. Yours is to be proactive in engaging with the opportunities and the support we provide. The analogy of coming to university being much like joining a gym is not a bad one; like a gym, we can provide you with lots of “equipment” and trainers to advise you on how to achieve your goals, but success will require a commitment from you to come along to the training sessions ready to push yourself.
But being a student is about far more than study. Universities are vibrant, dynamic communities where our individual preconceptions are questioned, and our interests and ideas allowed to flourish. You should therefore take every opportunity to find what excites you in the broadest sense, whether that be through engagement with student politics, voluntary work, sport or the arts.
So, enjoy the year ahead and I look forward to meeting many of you over the next few months.
Introduction from the Dean of Medical Education, Professor Nicki Cohen
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Welcome to the GKT School of Medical Education.
How wonderful to be back on campus and see it at its most vibrant and energised. Whether you have returned to us after the summer break (or thereabouts) or are just starting as a first-year student, welcome. The GKT Directors, Senior Leadership Team and Faculty Education Services together work hard here at King’s. We are one team – and it is very much a team effort.
GKT doctors are compassionate critical thinkers making a difference across the whole of society. We are here to help develop you in that way – through our teaching, personal and pastoral support and educational supervision – here on campus and also out in our hospital and primary care placement sites. All these pieces together make up your medical school. We want to know you and for you to feel part of this brilliant diverse engaged student body. What and how you learn will in significant part depend on what you put in. Medicine is a marathon not a sprint, but it relies on learning from people and patients, as well as from lectures and other resources.
So – get stuck in! Spend time getting to know your student cohort and us. We will be finding space to sit down with many of you during the year, and there are lots of ways to feed back to us too.
Please find time to enjoy the year ahead, have fun and explore all that King’s has to offer.
The Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine (FoLSM) is made up of six schools and the Centre for Education, which is home to the School of Bioscience Education and the GKT School of Medical Education.
FoLSM delivers Undergraduate, Postgraduate Taught and Postgraduate Research degree programmes and has a community of over 6000 students.
Please see the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine webpage for more detailed information.
