(bright upbeat music)
- But with us now is Dr. Andy Hooton,
Head of Discipline for Sport and Exercise Science,
and Karl who graduated from Sport and Exercise Science,
and is now studying for his masters degree.
Gents, welcome to Open Day Live.
Hi Radzi
Now how's the morning been so far?
- Yeah, very good.
Thank you very much.
- And Dr. Andy, I'll come to yourself, sir.
Science, sorry,
Sports at Derby, what's it all about?
- Well, it was good to see you getting involved there
and we've got a fantastic range of kind of programs
that we offer,
focusing on a wide range of aspects within sport.
So, looking at rehabilitation, looking at sport management
as people saw before,
we focus on education, performance sport,
and we have a wide range of courses that we develop
with a real applied industry focus.
So working with a variety of partners across the region
to support that
and our programmes where appropriate
are accredited by a governing bodies.
So the Society of Sports Therapists, for example,
for our Sport Therapy and Rehabilitation programme
and the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science
for our Sport and Exercise Science programme.
And I guess if you're a keen athlete as well,
and there's great opportunities to get involved in sport
when you're at the university.
So you can get involved in the British Universities
and Colleg Sport competition.
And there's also social and competitive opportunities
whilst you're there as well, so yeah.
Really appealing if you're a keen athlete.
- I'm old enough to remember when that was called Booster
rather than BUCS, but less about that.
- Me too (Radzi and Andy laugh lightly)
- Karl you've kind of come through the system
that Andy's talking about there.
- Yep.
- When did you first start at Derby?
- So think it was 2016.
It was when started my undergrad.
I was lucky I got a sports scholarship with uni.
So I was cycling for a team
that is sponsored by the University at Derby
and yeah, took up opportunity,
knew I wanted to work in sport,
but didn't know what exactly, so I chose Sports Science,
so you could get the broad range of biomechanics, nutrition,
physiology, psychology, and work my way through.
- And going back to your A levels, what did you study?
- So I studied Biology, PE and Maths.
They were my three A levels.
- And if you let me asking, what did you get?
- I've got three B's.
- And that was enough to get you into Derby?
- Yeah, I think.
- But then you've thrived on the course.
I'll probably ask you why in just a second.
What is it you look for in students when they come,
in terms of people who can go on
to working in that as a career?
- Yeah, I think the key thing is,
there's potentially 15,000 students coming out
with a sport degree in the UK nowadays.
And it's not just about getting the academic knowledge.
It's about developing yourself as a person
and developing those key attributes
and gaining experience
as you're going through your degree as well.
And I think that's really what employers are looking for.
And if you're going to be able
to secure a good job at the end of it,
and some kind of a, I guess, a long career as well,
then, you know,
developing yourself as a person is a really key aspect.
And we've got a great team of academics,
that really work with individuals
to figure out their strengths
and help identify your areas for development.
And that's really important to us
and a real kind of key focus for supporting students.
- You mentioned governing bodies,
is there opportunities for students to go away
and possibly get work experience
whilst managing their degree?
- Yeah, 100%`.
So we offer out a variety of different internships
with a number of partners across the region.
So, some really great examples of success
where students have gained internships
with a variety of different maybe football clubs or
wellbeing organisations or County Council,
as they're going through their degree
and then progressed on to some really great positions.
So for example,
Luke Jenkinson is now Head of Sports Science
and Academy Medical at Derby County Football Club.
Sophie Bean's progressed on to become a clinical and
engagement coordinator with Bupa.
And if you want to pursue an academic route,
then Joe Welch just progressed on to study
at the university of British Columbia in Canada.
- (Radzi) Wow.
- And he's now a successful academic in America as well.
So, there's some really cool opportunities,
but you've got to put the effort in
while you're at university
and make sure you're getting a broad range of experiences
as you're going through.
- And it's good to know that effort
can lead to bearing fruit for sure.
And Karl it's happened with yourself.
So you left with, what degree did you get?
Again, I'm going to assess your personal CV.
- Yeah, I got 2:1,
Sport Science, and a first in my dissertation,
I was pretty good.
And then from there, I got in touch
with my old cycling team that I used to ride for
and got some experience with them as a team sport staff.
So yeah.
I've been traveling over Europe with them,
doing behind the scenes stuff that you don't see and yeah,
it's been really good.
- And what is that behind the scenes stuff?
- Filling bottles, a lot of driving,
a lot of driving and just generally sport.
Say the team put me on a sports massage course.
So things like that, safeguarding course as well,
cause it was a junior team, so under 18.
So it's just ticking off those qualifications.
Yeah, just getting the hands on experience.
And often there's not much time that you have to do things
when you're in that environment sites,
getting that feel for it,
whereas you don't really get that or get taught that.
So it's a case of
just getting stuck in getting bikes out of the van
or getting equipment out.
It's a lot of stuff that you don't expect to do
or expect to see but it's all the good all the same.
- And when you say things like massage,
you're not talking about Indian head massage,
presumably talk about deep tissue
and preparing the body for performing at a high level.
How much has your degree helped in things like that
and sort of the anatomy and understanding how things work.
- Yeah, anatomy put me in a great place
for doing that qualification that we did first year.
It was certainly a short one year like trying to remember
it all, but I'll fill you in that.
I got the qualification, it was all good.
And it's been,
especially when you're doing like four day stage races
and it's quite tiring to do on a number of riders,
so if you've got that qualification,
it's an extra pair of hands where, so for example,
a team of six riders
and you had a four-day stage race in Spain,
wherever, and they want to recover each night.
So if you've got that behind you,
you can get stuck in and help them out.
Yeah, did all that.
- And you've got a big race yourself coming up.
- Yeah, it sort of come about for with lock down
and having more time.
And I sort of always had this what if, with my own racing.
So I felt I'll give an hour record attempt to go.
So obviously we've got Derby arena at Derby,
so thought we'd go there and use student placements
to create like an interdisciplinary project on it.
- (Radzi) Wow.
- So yeah, hopefully I'll just be a combination of
life studying and training and bring it all together.
- So what's the record?
- Oh, the world record.
I'm not going to get anywhere near.
I figured it's like 55 kilometres now,
but I think for me,
it just be, just to get the most out of myself,
see where I can compare myself.
- So is how many cycles, 55 kilometres on a bike in an hour?
- Yeah.
- And that's a velodrome.
- Yep.
- Whooph.
- Karl is aiming for an hour.
- Ooh.
- (Andy and Karl) 50Km in an hour.
- Well
I'd like to think that, that's us.
- You playing it coy here.
- Yeah, I guess it's Andy's style with psychology obviously
It will go looking like you trying to avoid or whatnot,
but I think 50 is
realistic, but though,
it's crazy challenging,
but I think we've previously done our thing,
given six months, hopefully it will be more,
- He's not told many people is aiming for 50,
but now I've told everyone.
- But other people know.
It's out to the world now.
- And that's what going to happen.
- Yeah.
- You mentioned the word psychology,
Sports Psychology is key.
Is that a part of the course
and what you kind of study as well,
but what you teach rather?
- Yeah, definitely.
And that's my area of expertise actually.
So Sports Psychology forms a key part of Sport
and Exercise Science.
And I guess we work with people to try and
enhance their confidence primarily
and give them the confidence to go out
and do things that they wouldn't normally do
and put themselves in those situations.
And I think you mentioned this as we were chatting before
about that time that you spend
actually getting yourself to your career.
I think that's really important
and Karl's doing something fantastic.
He works in the HPU.
He does his cycling tours and you know,
he's come back into my module last year after arriving home,
I think commuting from Belgium
and getting back at about 3:00 AM in the morning.
But you know, it's been really great to see his journey
and he did a presentation for me
last year
and I think we were chatting upstairs,
probably the best mark he's got.
And that's based on the fact that he's just,
he's developed his personal attributes.
And he's to a different place where
he can speak confidently in front of people
and he knows his stuff and he's backing it up now.
And I think that's great to see.
- That isn't just to kind of shed a bit of light
on what you're talking about.
There is that, so it took me three years
to get my opportunity in TV,
three years of working for free,
three years of being a mascot called spike the lion,
a mascot called Busby the bird.
Work, earning no money at all
to eventually get an opportunity,
which may or may not happen
because I think people often focus on destinations
rather than journeys.
But with that in mind, the journey,
what's the journey people have to go on
to reach a destination in the field that you teach?
- I think it isn't lot about that.
It's about being able to put yourself out there.
I think gaining experience
and making good impressions is key.
Developing those personal attributes as we've talked about,
making sure you learn from the experts
that we have to come and teach.
All of our academics are engaged in industry or research.
So they're able to kind of
not only provide the academic standpoint,
but their experience of how to work with athletes
and how to kind of collect effective data.
We also get in guest speakers from industry,
that come and talk about their journey.
And rather than actually talking about
what they're doing now,
we often get them to talk about the journey,
so that students can see what it's like
in terms of the trajectory
and that it's not just walking into a dream job,
it's about planning
and effectively progressing towards that.
- And just touching on the course,
what proportion of theory
versus practical do you kind of adopt.
- I guess it, it varies very much dependent on the course.
So Sport Management degree has quite a lot of theory in it,
but there's a practical element
where you'd work down at Derby County Football Club,
for example,
whereas Karl's programme that he did in Sport
and Exercise Science,
has kind of three main strands of psychology,
physiology and biomechanics.
There's a lot of practical
within the physiology and biomechanics.
And then you've got option modules of nutrition, rehab,
physical activity, strength and conditioning.
So all of those have practical elements to it.
So yeah, very much depends on the course that you choose,
but some really great opportunities
to be able to get involved.
- And in terms of prospective students
who are going to be possibly applying
for one of your courses,
are there any particular things you're looking for
in an ideal candidate?
- Yeah, I think it's just demonstrating that
you're more than just the academic,
you're looking to kind of go beyond that and
get involved in practice
and wherever possible, kind of gaining experience,
whether it's industry based qualifications,
whether it's kind of work experience
that you're undertaking,
then I think that's going to put you in really good stead
to be ready for university
and be able to advance your independence
and progress towards that career.
- And Karl, did you have any of those things
when you applied to university?
- So well, I had a gap year after my A levels
to resume cycling and that was when I was on the team
that was sponsored by the University of Derby.
So I had more of the
athlete side of
understanding
before I went on to do my undergrad degree.
- Did any of your colleagues, actually on your course,
not have a strong sports background as yourself?
- Yeah, I think so.
I think it's a whole broad range,
I think
it's good as well
to have that experience outside of sport.
I can't think of anybody off the top of my head,
but it was generally a good diverse range, which,
and more sports the better.
So I think we had, like,
we've had some students were like climbers,
which is like quite interesting,
- (Radzi) Yeah there's climbing wall at Derby.
- Yeah and it's quite interesting
to learn from different sports.
I think if you're on one sport,
you can become a bit isolated.
So with the HPU testing of like,
for me learning about running,
like my running technique is poor so.
- (Radzi) All cyclists are.
- Yeah, just totally, not got it.
But it was good to learn.
And obviously when you... it's different approaches
and it's something that you can learn
all around Sports Science.
So it's good to have that diversity there.
- And Andy, you mentioned the HPU,
the Human Performance Unit.
- Yeah.
- Tell us about that.
- Yeah, so it's a fantastic facility and you know,
students get the opportunity as Tom said,
to kind of have to go in the facility,
they learn in the facility.
So it's used for academic teaching as well,
but they also get an opportunity, such as Karl,
to be able to work on some of the professional packages
that we offer out in Sport and Exercise Science.
So Karl does a lot of our physiology testing
and has really kind of progressed through
a mentee-mentor level through into that.
We work with a variety of different organisations
and we use them as well to develop our elite packages.
So for example,
we work with Running with Jake
to develop our running package.
We work with Jacob Tipper of HUUB Wattbike,
to develop our cycling package.
We've hosted the regional camps for British cycling
at the university as well.
We supported Leigh Timmus' world record
attempt to cross Europe,
which was successful a couple of years ago.
So there's some really fantastic opportunities
to get involved in.
And it's a really exciting
kind of area that we've developed over the last few years.
And yeah, I hope to keep progressing it
and seeing what we can do with it.
- Could I ask you to show off a second here
because the facilities are fantastic.
- Yeah.
- Could you give us a flavor of what there is
to offer to the layman?
- Okay, it will be the layman as well as a psychologist.
It's a bit of a challenge.
So yeah, we've got a dedicated strength
and conditioning suite.
So we were lucky enough to secure some fantastic equipment
after the 2015 Rugby World Cup in the UK.
So we use the equipment that had been used
by a number of the teams in that competition.
We've got a Vicon Analysis System
that Tom used to be able to put you through your paces.
And again, you know,
a fantastic kind of state- of-the-art technology
for students to kind of familiarise themselves with
and become experts in,
as they progress through their degree.
we offer a student led sport therapy clinic
for our Sport Therapy and Rehabilitation course,
that's open to a variety of staff and students to access,
so we can help keep everybody
well and mobile on campus as well.
Should they have any challenges.
So yeah, there's a real wide range of opportunities and
it's really great to see the students
kind of progress through those.
- I'm going to ask you both for advice in just a second,
but Andy, just final question directly to yourself is,
so when I watch TV, I analyse TV,
I'm watching why are they cut between that shot.
Are you able to watch, for example,
post performance interviews or pre performance,
and you analyzing their psychology about how they say,
what they say when they say it?
- Yeah, I guess probably we're delving into psychiatry.
I do, I do, I do.
I'm really interested in the way that athletes talk
and the way that kind of maybe managers and coaches talk.
Cause I think there's always a method
behind what they're doing, you know.
A manager might say something to the media,
it's probably to get a reaction from their team, you know.
A player might say something,
but they're obviously very conscious about the impression
that they're going to make to the rest of the players
and their manager.
So I think, yeah, there's always something behind it
and psychology is always playing a part.
So it is interesting to view it from that perspective.
And you know,
that's another thing that we try to do
when you come to university.
It's not just all about the theory
and the models behind things.
It's about looking at real life
and seeing where we can actually identify it
because realistically everything that we learn,
we need to apply to be able to have impact.
And therefore that's the really exciting bit
when you get to that applied aspect.
- What is actually amazing is
you're both talking with smiles on your faces.
You're not just sort of just going through the motions.
You really are clearly passionate about what you do
and what you've studied.
So with that in mind,
anyone at home who's thinking, right, I'd like to apply.
I don't know if this course is for me.
What do I need to even think about when I'm applying?
Do you have any pearls of wisdom, any advice that you'd say.
Karl you've been through the process
and Andy you're very much got the top overseeing.
So Karl if I come to you first.
- If you're not too sure,
I'd always say keep broad.
Generally as well when practitioners want to be looking at
an interdisciplinary approach, they want to be looking at,
you want to have that understanding of,
if you're a physiologist,
you want to understand the biomechanics
or psychology to have a better purpose for yourself.
So I'd always say if you're not too sure
of the specifics of what you want,
because I know we do a sports therapy course on its own,
whereas if you're not too sure if that's what you want,
I'd say, choose the Sports Science is a broader option.
And I think Steve Ingham, head of the EIC,
did a letter to the 15,000 blog
and he talks about placements in that
and how people need to get the experience.
And I think Derby is
doing the best
in terms of creating applied practitioners out there.
- Thank you for that Karl, great advice.
- Yeah, I think I'd reiterate a lot of what Karl said.
And I think, you know, realistically,
if you're passionate about sport,
if you're kind of interested in, in terms of,
like, we've just said about, you know,
what goes on behind the scenes
and what contributes towards high end performance,
but not only that like wellbeing, you know,
getting people involved in sport participation
at grassroots level.
That's really a wide range of opportunities
for you to get involved in.
And I think just, come prepared
to kind of put yourself out there,
come prepared to be uncomfortable
and kind of try new things.
And once you've done that, you'll really enjoy things,
and you'll be keen for the next opportunity.
- Guys, thank you so much for your insight.
It's been a pleasure.
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