Experience allows for new skills and understandings to be developed. I have grouped mine based on the theme of the work I have done.
While strictly abiding by ICH GCP E6 guidelines, I have begun working in data management. This involves primarily verifying the accuracy of data within a team, through reports, edit checks and validation checks. This enables me to gain a strong understanding of the clinical trials process, and everything that happens behind the scenes to allow for important medicines to be made safe and accessible to the public.
I have been tutoring friends since 2015, as part of community service asked of the MYP. I begun by tutoring Biology and Chemistry and quickly began helping students in years below. Once I went to uni, I began tutoring General science, Maths, Psychology, and English to KS3, GCSE, A level and IB students. Since finishing my Honours’ degree, I have been tutoring undergraduates as well, particularly with organising essay structures and assisting in evaluating research for critical reviews. My approach to tutoring is rather informal and treated as a discussion more than a class, enabling students to feel comfortable and estbalishing mutual respect. If a class is what the student asks for though, I organise more before a session and prepare slides and exercises as need be. I often direct students to further resources and provide them with the toolkit to learn by themselves, simply guiding along the way.
The journal club involved reading papers beforehand and approaching them with a critical mind, giving the attendees and members the ability to approach research with a critical eye. This established what defines useful and valuable research and limitations that are beyond what had been taught in class. I learned greatly from being a member of this jorunal club and ended up changing drastically the way I researched, read papers, and wrote essays.
While completing high school, I had known of my desire to pursue neuropharmacology long term and arranged to assist and shadow Dr. Wayne Macfadden’s work with ranibizumab. During this, Dr. Macfadden was a senior editor of medical manuscripts and presentations. I attended team meetings for contextual help and 1-1 meetings with Dr. Macfadden to discuss our findings from editing, including when I spotted some errors in graphical representations. Dr. Macfadden made me gain a deep respect for adapting the delivery of a message to the audience and the value of concise language.
Freelance writing for Heroica.co has been a project of mine since being directed towards the platform in 2020. A publishing platform for gender minorities (women and trans/non-binary), it became a passion of mine to write occasionally for them while working towards my degrees. I often write for them under pseudonyms or anonymously to maintain anonymity when discussing personal subjects. Nonethless, this experience encouraged me to think creatively with message delivery. Not only have I written for Heroica, but I also make accompanying art, such as in the article attached ( Heroica.co article example).
Continuing off accessibility of information. Film and TV is one of the largest platforms to send or receive knowledge or ideas to the public. This is why I chose to volunteer for the student TV at Glasgow University, and soon after became Science Producer. The role entails organising a studio on a scientific subject to help members practice using equipment, and organising as many films as desired. I have organised two studios; one being an advertisement for a futuristic technology, and one with a script where the neuroscientific basis of memory formation is explained to a general audience. As for short film projects, one such project is based on representing the social expectations after the pandemic restrictions easing and the impact of this on mental health. The other project is going to be on scientific researchers themselves and life beyond academia to help perception of scientific academics. TO access any films: GUST website)
With an interest in mental health awareness and disability rights, I began working in the Wellness team for the UCL branch of KEEN UK (a disability rights charity). I was promoted to head of Wellness for the first year of this branch’s activity. This involved overseeing a team of 6 people, coming up with a vision for the team, and prioritising aspects of the team’s development. I prioritised a project involving supporting the branch with mental health and raising awareness, internally and externally. We held branch meetings to discuss commonly raised mental health conditions and pursued projects where we would blog on wellness topics.
As representative, I sat on both the LGBTQ+ Network committee, and the Disabled Students’ Network Committee. This involved meetings to plan events, such as socials and talks for the year to keep students engaged with the networks. I also acted as the direct liason between the two committees to improve inter-network communication. For the Disabled Students’ Network (DSN), I took over the social media engagement portion of their activities and created the art and overall posts for most of their activities. I also hosted the DSN socials for a large part of the year.
October 2020 - February 2021 After joining the DSN, I was made aware of the Student Experience Committee (StEC) Working Group and began attending the meetings to communicate the needs of the students. Given my time as a disabled student and engaging with fellow disabled students (particularly while hosting the socials), my attendance and raising of issues felt only right as I wanted to effect change and ensure all vital criticism and praise were heard, and needs were met.
Inspired by an article I had read stating the positive impact of dance, physical movement, and expression and mental health, I organised a local youth mental health charity (ProJuventute) fundraiser with a fellow student in the form of a series of dance performances. This involved recruiting dancers, communicating with ProJuventute, arranging a venue, gathering volunteers to collect funds and bake during the intermission. This inspired a ongoing interest in mental health awareness, as well as establishing my faith in myself to lead and organise a large event.
I engaged with a great team of ambassadors who would welcome all new students to the UCL campus and halls. The main tasks included preparing welcome packs, guiding students to their rooms, hosting campus tours, performing quality checks on rooms, hosting events, and helping in any way possible to ease the burden on the permanent accommodation staff. A frequent occurrence involves sorting mail, and delivering meals and plans to students in isolation.
After being a co-chair in a previous conference and attending two other conferences, I was elected as Deputy Secretary General. I oversaw the running of 8 teams, making up the organisational crew of 18 students. This led to the running of 2 conferences (one being preparatory for the delegates). I was awarded the Model United Nations Award for my contribution to the successful conference with >100 attendees.