Hi, I am Toby and I am in Sixth Form on the Isle of Wight. It is tough, at 17, to figure out which course you should choose for University, that will prepare you for a career that you will do for the next 50 years of your life! And it is important to make the right choice, because here in the UK, university education is no longer free.

So, on May 1st this year my dad and I drove up to Oxford to meet Dr Jacqueline Koay (jacQ) to have a behind the scenes look around Oxford, and specifically St Johns College, her alma mater. I was also invited to have lunch at the Said Business School (part of University of Oxford) at the Egrove Park campus where Jacqueline was facilitating an Executive Programme on Scenarios.

I was honoured to have the opportunity to get a behind the scenes look into a lecture full of 42 executive programme participants from 28 countries. One of the highlights was being called out by Professor Rafael Ramirez who welcomed me as the “ future generation of foresight practitioners” as I tried to be discreet entering the room. But voom, 28 pairs of eyes turned to look at me!

Photo: Professor Ramirez and I

Strategic foresight is basically thinking ahead when the future feels blurry, like choosing a career when you don’t know what jobs will exist in four years’ time. It’s about exploring different paths, imagining how things might change and staying flexible so you’re ready for whatever future actually shows up. I guess this is why PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) has always been a popular undergraduate course in Oxford.

Afterwards, I got to meet Arthur, a 16 year old who is living in Monaco and is keen on Physics. He is one of Jacqueline’s godchildren. We met him and the train station and I got my first chance to really appreciate the beauty of Oxford’s old city as we walked through it to meet at Hooke’s museum. Here, we met up with Jacqueline and her colleague Sara Courtenay, one of the programme’s facilitators and Shell’s senior strategy advisor. Sara had flown in from Australia (where she lives) to facilitate this course and for several meetings in De Hague. As a person who is still unsure on what areas of study I want to pursue, it was a brilliant opportunity to ask Sara what pathways she took at my age and which subjects her interests lay in.

We got to get some ice cream in town (at George and Davis! Best ever!) and we got to talking about chemistry and quantum physics. It got me thinking about the science behind ice cream (Emulsion, crystallisation, and rheology) and from there, a whole load of other areas where the two subjects overlap.

Photo: Arthur and I at George and Davis.

Having been enriched in such an inspiring city and being given a view of what it was like for two successful individuals in academia really gave me comfort knowing that its okay to be unsure of what I want to do at this moment in time.

Over the next few months I’m going to have to decide on the direction in which interests me and maybe visit some chemical manufacturing plants here on the Isle of Wight. We have SMT Cowes (chemical manufacturing), innovation physics limited shanklin (radiation detection and advanced materials.) and gearing scientific in ventnor (thermal power and heat transfer science.) As I continue to research and find out more, I hope to narrow down my choice and be able to get involved in the evolving world of chemistry.

Or as Jacqueline says, think about quantum chemistry! Will see if I can loop Arthur in, as his interest is in quantum physics. Watch this space!