The guests got to explore basic research, our views on sustainability and life sciences, cheerful talks tailored for their age and situation, and to attend information meetings for every undergraduate program.
World leading researchers stand side by side with Research Grand Prix-winners, while our students fill the stand exhibition area with their smiles and enthusiasm.
Among this year’s popular science lecturers are chemist Alexanders Sandtorv from the Academy For Young Researchers. He is publishing a book about hangovers, and this was the topic for his mini talk during Open Day. Mathematician Kent-Arne Mardal explained how your brain is cleansed while you are sleeping. Sabrina Sartori from Department of Technology Systems presented challenges and solutions concerning renewable energy, and Lene Pettersen from Department of Informatics talked about digital business models, from Tesla to Tinder.
Student Recruitment: The Personal Meeting Is Important
The importance of Open Day is underlined by the results of the Applicants Survey. This is an annual survey addressing all applicants who put the University of Oslo on their top 5 list of preferred study places in their application to the Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Samordna opptak).
The pattern is clear: the personal and physical meeting is important for everyone taking the big step of choosing a higher education. For those who attend Open Day, this day is an important trigger.
All pupils visiting Open Day will have the opportunity to talk to a real university student. We make sure that every undergraduate program has its own stand manned by students this day. Our students bring their homemade rockets, they make scientific quizzes and activities, bring stuff to touch, things to wonder about, and they bring their smiles, their pride and love for their study program and environment.
Expanding perspectives
Many become more uncertain about their choice of study after Open Day (ref. annual Open Day evaluation). This is not necessarily a bad thing. We think the encounter with the many opportunities and study programs can lead the applicants to expand their perspective of what is the right study option for them. Maybe they didn't know that you can study cybernetics, medical physics, physiology or paleontology here at Blindern. This day we showcase the diversity of study directions and academic opportunities at the University of Oslo, and we show that you can tackle a challenge from many different academic angles.
A long line of academic contributors help us fill the auditoriums of Vilhelm Bjerknes’ and Georg Sverdrup’s house during Open Day. With short and catchy popular science talks, we get to present a wide range of what we do here at the University, by a number of brilliant students and researchers who are delighted to speak directly to this years applicants. Eighty percent of the Open Day guests are high school seniors, and our goal is for as many as possible to return to campus in August.