In early March, potential students watched from home when DTU broadcast the Online Open Day event directly from the DTU Library on Lyngby Campus.
The technicians started counting down from two minutes to the first ever Online Open Day event at DTU. There was quiet among the small group that had turned up to prepare for the morning’s three-hour live show, which featured a mix of interviews with students and presentations by researchers. Everyone turned their gaze towards the middle of the DTU Library, when the host, Marie Høst, a journalist for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, started the day’s programme. And 456 participants around the country tuned in to hear about DTU’s BSc and BEng study programmes.
The Online Open Day began with a series of features that gave a general introduction to DTU. There were presentations by the Study Guidance Office, DTU ScienceShow, an engineering graduate, and DTU researchers of artificial intelligence and sustainability. In addition, students talked about their final projects, exchange visits abroad, and student life.
One of the students who spoke about her final project was Lorenza Pia Foglia. She studies Physics and Nanotechnology and works on the DeTectUs project, which is developing a biosensor for detecting influenza A virus infection through saliva samples.
“I went to an Open Day before I started at DTU, but this is the first time I’ve been part of the event. It’s definitely different when it’s online. It’s a big production and it's very cool. But of course it would be more fun if there had been a lot of people,” she says.
Lorenza Pia Foglia (to the right) and Victoria Sosnovtseva from DeTectUs. Photo: Mikal Schlosser.
Spectacular special effects
Another student on the online stage was Eva Fabricius-Bjerre from DTU ScienceShow, which consists of DTU students from different study programmes, who demonstrated spectacular physics and chemistry experiments.
“I think it's been great to be part of the Online Open Day,” she says.
“Normally we have a stand at the Open Day where people can participate in experiments and we can interact with the audience. That makes it a little more ‘hands on’, and we can tell people why we think DTU is a great place to be. We’re also used to the audience being able to hear the bang as we start our show. But today we wanted to do something that looked extra cool. So we finished with a barrel filled with colourful balls that exploded all over the place.”
Eva Fabricius-Bjerre from DTU ScienceShow. Photo: Mikal Schlosser.
Presentation of study programmes
The Online Open Day ended with potential new students being given the chance to participate via Zoom in the heads of studies’ presentations of DTU’s study programmes, and to meet current students. They also had the opportunity to get drop-in guidance from the Study Guidance Office, DTU Qualifying Education, and Special Educational Support. In total, there were over 200 individual Zoom meetings during the day.