My unexpected journey
Hey guys,
So writing this now, this is probably my first piece for my bloggish thing I’m doing. I wanted to start here about myself to show people how random a persons journey can be, and hopefully inspire some people (or just one...) to think outside the box and chase what they really want.
It all starts having been born in London and living a pretty normal life, school, friends and family. I look back fondly on those 13 years of my life. Of course, there were the occasional ups and downs. Teachers who decided not being engaged in Latin at the age of 10 meant I wouldn’t amount to anything, children’s parents who had an issue with me as I was a “bad influence,” you know, the usuals.
So it came as a shock when one day I was told I was moving to Kuwait with my dad. At 13, you drop everything and you go. I wish this attitude (not that I had a choice then) stayed with me because putting myself in a strange environment gave me some of my greatest experiences. I met some of my closest friends, learnt to read and write Arabic and actually reconnect with my Egyptian roots, and I gained deep respect for a culture outside of western culture. In 3 years, I had gained more experience than I had in the 13 previous ones.
So armed with my new outlook, I was back in the UK for my final two years of schooling. Things weren’t all straightforward being forced to do Cambridge Pre-U exams rather than your standard A-level exams. They said it was because it made for better university students, I think it was just to see who could cram the most information in 2 years that we would inevitably forget after whichever exam we had sat. Final verdict: I was no different from anyone else who had done A-levels, just demoralised.
I ended up getting a place at The University of Aberdeen to study Biochemistry. 4 of the most turbulent years of my life, but such is university. I grew a lot, made friends, lost friends, passed exams and pulled all nighters. But, above all I was inspired by a fungal species called Candida, (yes, thrush.) Candida became the topic of my dissertation as I researched it was able to mask points on its surface to avoid being recognised by the immune system, enabling it to cause a serious blood infection. In all honesty, it may have not been the topic Candida that got me excited it was my two brilliant supervisors who I dont think I will ever be able to thank enough for helping me find my love for science again. If there's someone about to start their dissertation, I cannot emphasise enough, find a supervisor you gel with.
So I decided to study a Masters, and lets be honest having a BSc nowadays is not an achievement. You're allowed to hand in your CV for jobs, but you wont even make it to an interview. I decided to study Drug Discovery and Development at Imperial College, London. The description was that it was suitable for people with a Biochemistry degree, but the bio- part must have been a typo. I was out of my depth. Luckily part of the course was a 9-months research project and all the options were heavily chemistry based, something about synthesis, which I couldn't tell you what it is. I went my own way, found a supervisor and we designed a diagnostic test to detect different species of Candida. I promise, it's a lot more interesting than it sounds and I might write something on it later. The pandemic hit, I was at home doing my whole project computationally and what a mess that was. Somehow, I made it and received my masters and entered the world of unemployment.
Sitting in Dinerama with a friend of mine (socially distanced) he was telling me about his internship at an Investment Bank and talking starting salaries etc. He looked at me and just said that I could be good at that and I should apply. So the next morning I began applying not just to investment banks but to all banks because if I am honest, I didn't know the difference. I secured a job in Risk Management and worked at a bank in London and across the Middle East. I didn't realise how oblivious I was to banking and the financial world, but science can really become a bubble. You can design treatments for diseases, but you can't handle an overdraft.
I should probably add here, that a part of me always wanted to become a doctor. While my masters was happening, I did the shadowing, read some books (I recommend this is going to hurt and face to face) did the UCAT, gave up on the GAMSAT and wrote a personal statement and discovered a university called Anglia Ruskin 15 minutes before the UCAS deadline, so naturally I applied. In a nutshell I am a 24 year old, with a BSc in Biochemistry, an MRes in Drug Discovery and Development, ex-banker in London with an offer to study medicine in September 2021, who is currently working as a management consultant.
