A new series of lectures being held at Loughborough University is aiming to give secondary school students a deeper insight into university study and set them on the path to higher education.

The ‘Inspiring Minds’ series will see lecturers, doctors and professors from the University talking about real-life issues and today’s burning questions.  The first lecture, entitled Love is in the air, will consider how soldiers in World War One expressed their love to their valentines and for their home and country.

Emma Bagley manages outreach activities for secondary school students on behalf of the Glendonbrook Centre for Enterprise Education, based within the University’s School of Business and Economics. She says the series will help to give secondary-level students a better understanding of university education.

“Teaching at universities can be quite different from that at school or college, and considering whether to make the transition can perhaps be quite daunting for some students. These lectures will enable them to sample the academic life of an undergraduate and hopefully give them the confidence to move on to higher education,” Emma says.

In Love is in the air, being held on Wednesday 12 February, Dr Deirdre O’Byrne, a lecturer in English, will compare the prose and poetry of the soldier-poets who fought in the trenches to modern novels such as Sebastian Faulk's Birdsong and A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry.

Dr O’Byrne explains: “The continuing fascination with the First World War shows in the popularity of recent novels set in that era. We’ll have a look at some examples of various attitudes towards war, and discuss how they’ve changed since a century ago.’

The other lectures coming up in the series are:

Accident investigation (19 March) – how investigators find out what actually happened in crime and accident scenes, the roles people play, and whether depictions on TV are accurate.

Change in the Arctic: fast, getting faster, coming our way (30 April) – a look at present and future changes in the Arctic and the potential effects closer to home.

The lectures will run from 5pm to 6pm. Staff and students from the University will be on hand throughout the events to answer any questions attendees have about studying at or applying to Loughborough.

Parents, guardians and teachers are also welcome to attend the events.

For further information about all of the lectures, and details of how to book a place, go to www.lboro.ac.uk/inspiringminds/