When Kate Balding discovered the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (BSc), she felt she had finally found the right programme for her many interests. “I loved the fact that some of the modules combined humanities and science,” she says. “The first year kind of gives you a really good grounding in lots of different areas. I was still working out what my interests were, it gave me time to do that.”
By the second and third years, students had the freedom to choose their own modules.
“I loved that I could tailor my course as my interests developed,” she adds. “That’s also how I ended up focusing on the environmental sphere.”
After graduating, Kate moved into journalism, where she has interviewed many leading science communicators, including Sir David Attenborough. She credits her degree for shaping how she approaches her work. “STS challenged me to think and learn how to write not only in an academic sense but also in a public-facing sense,” she says. “That breadth of knowledge is incredibly useful in journalism. There are things from my degree that still come up in my work all the time -- I even find myself referencing my sleep and dreaming modules in all sorts of work.”