Staff and students go head-to-head on BBC quiz show

A BBC Radio 4 quiz show featuring Imperial science students competing against their professors will air next week.

The trio of undergraduate students from a variety of science disciplines went head to head in The 3rd Degree – a BBC Radio 4 programme hosted by comedian Steve Punt. 

The quiz heat, which was recorded on campus in February this year, will be broadcast to the nation on Monday 6 July. 

“Terrific fun, and enlightening too”: Staff and students on the gameshow

The quiz show, which has been on air for ten years, features three undergraduates against three members of staff in a series of rounds. The rounds vary from general knowledge, to a subject-specific round, to a 'Highbrow / Lowbrow' round, where students can challenge their professors on popular culture, with questions ranging from Barthes to Beyoncé. 

The student team was: 

• Mathematics student Sorcha Owens 
• Materials Sciences student Zack Jeanrenaud  
• Biochemistry student Rachel Ng 

And the staff team was: 

• Director of Cross-Curricular Mathematics Education, Dr Philip Ramsden 
• Professor of Materials Chemistry, Milo Shaffer 
• Professor of Cell Biology and Infectious Diseases, Jake Baum  

Here’s what they had to say about the gameshow: 

Biochemistry student, Rachel Ng said: “It was an amazing experience to be on a radio quiz because I had learnt so much! One question that intrigued me was directed to my professor, Jake Baum, who was asked to state what the meaning of ‘S’ in the ‘N4HCS’ scaffold of antimalarial drugs.  

“After the quiz, I was curious to know what the ‘N4HC’ represented but was unable to find anything on the Internet. I later found ‘N4HCS’ has been mentioned in only one research paper co-written by Professor Baum, which shows how rapidly the scientific industry is progressing to tackle global diseases such as malaria. Really appreciate the researchers’ dedication to finding new cures.” 

Dr Philip Ramsden said: “I really enjoyed it! I managed to dredge up some hard-ish maths and some nice general knowledge, while getting a bit of arithmetic badly wrong, so a mixed bag as far as my professional reputation is concerned. 

“The weird thing about going up against students, especially from my department, is that you can't switch off the wish for them to do well. Every time Sorcha (who was brilliant) came up with a great answer, I was delighted, before thinking "Hang on a minute, she's the opposition. I'm only sad I can't do it more than once.”  

Professor Jake Baum added: “That was terrific fun, and enlightening too. Turns out that my general knowledge appears to be better than my specialist knowledge! Who’d have guessed that the S in?N4HCMS (a new class of antimalarial drug) would stand for sulphonamide? I went and looked it up after the show, turns out it was my lab that discovered them in 2018. Sigh! Thank goodness it's a team game.” 

Listen to the broadcast 

The Imperial College London round of BBC Radio 4’s The 3rd Degree will be broadcast at 15:00 on Monday 6 July 2020. Listen live or on catchup at The 3rd Degree show page.  

The broadcast is part of the show's tenth series airing this summer – each of the six episodes in the series having been recorded in a different UK university.