UEA Mentoring Session 1 - Monday 7th December, 2015

This week, on Monday 7th December just passed, I attended a EPQ mentoring session along with associates from school. The purpose of the trip to the UEA was to iron out any kinks with my proposed question and complete some further research.

The visit was a fantastic opportunity to access data archives only available within the university campus, thus enabling me to find a multitude of online articles relating to the development of Air combat from all eras of history. It was also useful as in certain articles, first hand testaments to what it was, and can still be, like to fly aircraft in life or death combat situations can be found. I fully intend to use the articles found from my time at the session in my research and final writing of the project as they are accurate and comprehensively portray what life was and can be like for those tasked with flying air craft in combat situations.

Not only this, the trip has helped me to develop my task question, making it more closely linked and relevant to the topic. Also, the inclusion f certain "buzz words" has helped me to more formally structure what kind of information I should be including and what the question is that I am truly trying to answer with my research over the coming months.

The experience also enabled valuable time with students from the university who had already been through the same experience of completing an EPQ, making them useful for highlighting any possible flaws within my base thinking for where I was going with my project. For example, the question was raised that perhaps by going in chronological order, from time period to time period and focusing on how the role of aircraft had developed and changed in each circumstance, was perhaps too vague a question and would be a slightly too large a period to cover. Although, further debate made it clear that my title and the inclusion of the buzz word, 'to what extent' allows me to focus on a breadth study of the entire period and then use this research to draw up a final conclusion at the end of my writing in regards to how far aircraft have developed and that the inclusion of the entire range is vital in answering this question.

Overall, the session was a massive help in researching my area and outlining certain possible flaws that could appear later on in my researching stage. On the other hand it has helped me better formulate my ideas and further 'painted a picture' of the context I will be studying, relevant for background information I can recall upon the actual writing of the project.