Year 13 pupil Highly Commended for Trinity College essay
Posted on: September 18th 2023School News
Congratulations to year 13 pupil Jude who entered the 2023 Languages & Cultures Essay Prize competition ran by Trinity College, Cambridge and was highly commended for his entry.
There were over 50 entries for this prize and Jude’s work was described as “meticulous in deconstructing the prompt and defining its key terms as well as articulating the objectives of each section”.
Jude spoke about the experience: “As I’m hoping to study languages at university, I took the opportunity to enter into the Cambridge Languages and Cultures Essay Prize over the summer. The prompt for my essay was “It is easier to control the power and messages of images, than of words.” I chose to write about propaganda for the first section and I researched the effectiveness of image and word based propaganda in WW1, which allowed me to deepen my own knowledge about Germany. For the second half I talked about the use of images in teaching and learning. Overall I concluded that effective communication can be achieved through a balance of images and words, but that messages are more effectively communicated through words, whilst images provide the emphasis and ‘power’ of a message.
“With essays written in school I think that we often have to answer certain questions for our curriculum, and indeed structure them carefully to meet our assessment objectives, which of course is an important skill; however, a competition like this really allowed me to focus on particular interests of mine and gave me the freedom to write in my own style. The essay was also based on my own research, which is something I’ve had some experience with in school, but having to go out and find much of the information myself, from scratch, was something which I thoroughly enjoyed. Aside from teaching me how to research effectively, and giving me an opportunity to practice my writing skills, this competition also gave me practice on how to evaluate my own work, which is such a crucial stage in any piece of writing.
“I was recently informed that my essay had been highly commended and I was invited to Trinity College for a prize-giving ceremony. I was able to meet and talk to other winners from across the country, who wrote for various different subjects. We were given a tour of the college and lunch, ending with the prize-giving and a Q and A with a couple of the tutors from the college. The opportunity to speak to them, gain their insights into choosing a university/college, preparing my application and studying after sixth form was invaluable to me and I hope to be able to visit Cambridge again in the future”.
Well done Jude from everyone at MGS!