This semester marked the long-anticipated opening of the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) – a grand, turreted fortress home to the new Interdisciplinary Futures courses. No sooner had it been erected than a cohort of students formed the Futures Society. Its mission is to bring together passionate and dedicated students, promoting discussion of future issues and developing global threats in the 21s century.
With the institute as their oyster, they plan to host a number of networking events,workshops and talks. Aside from a bounty of study space, the society will make the most of the event space, which will host public debates, speakers and guest conferences. On the back of talks by specialists on global challenges and opportunities, members would benefit from expert insight on AI, climate change, sustainability. The maker space on the first floor will facilitate access to state-of-the art machinery such as 3D printers, textile machines, robotics and more.
Its president, Aria Kim, believes the society should act as a handbook guide to students navigating the new interdisciplinary pathways, and how these subjects can serve their course-plotting in an ever-changing career landscape.
The EFI website describes the undergraduate Futures course as a programme that places “profound questions” about “sustainability, inequality, global heath, and conflict”- like questions on citizenship, data optimization, and overall tools to better humanity. In this sense, the society’s emphasis on discussion and the diffusion of ideas should pair nicely with those studying the new pathways- though membership is certainly not limited to Interdisciplinary Futures undergrads.
Though the fledgling society will be evolving and adopting new tactics as it finds its feet, their foci for now are debates; expert guest speakers; and running skill-based workshops in coding, public speaking, and journalism. Socialising will of course be central, given the paramountcy placed on networking. They aim to host a consistent events to this aim, notably the EFI ball next semester. The institute not only permits them a social and study space for their events, but their financial support also allows membership costs to stay low, bolstering the society’s mission to accessibility.
Futures society differentiates itself from other forward-thinking societies through its breadth of focus and low barriers to entry. Their workshops explore broad discussions on current affairs as well as general public speaking techniques, rather than the more technical and focused discussions found in Edinburgh’s Political and Debate unions.
The question remains: why join Futures Society over the plethora of career boosting societies that have benefitted centuries of students? While older societies’ ethe are more cemented, Futures Society presents an opportunity for malleability- by students, for students. Its president holds accessibility at the heart of her society’s mission. Kim experienced university as an international student with no pre-established connections in the country, and a woman in STEM circumventing the difficulties of landing opportunities in data science and AI sectors. She is no stranger to feeling stranded and undervalued, and the skills she honed while overcoming these obstacles form the skeleton of the Futures Society. Namely, strategies in self-sufficiency, and the skills to build an earned network based on skill and dedication, rather than an inherited one.
Kim’s ambitions for the society flew it to the UNA Europa Student Congress last week, at Freie Universität Berlin. The congress discussed the university of the future and the University of Edinburgh put forward the society and institute as their part of the vision. The society claims a vision aligned with that of Berlin’s Freie Universität – dedicated to supporting institutions that produce citizens of the free world and citizens of the future.
Image taken by Juliet Gartside.