[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This week, I have been very lucky to interview one of our 2022 summer students Christine, who studied Medicine on our Academic Insights programme being held at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford.
Hi Christine, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview with us.
Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? Where you are from? Your hobbies? Etc.
Hi! My name is Christine, and I come from Manila, Philippines! I am very interested in multiple fields, ranging from biochemistry all the way to debate and governance. I spend most of my free time teaching kids, creating music, doing theatre, and watching thriller films!
What course did you do last summer and why did you choose it?
Last summer, I attended Oxford’s Medicine immersion course where I was given the opportunity to experience the medical field through a multilateral perspective. Medicine has been an ambiguous field that I was always highly interested in but have never actively looked into, so I chose it to discover the discipline in an international viewpoint and to see if it worked for me as a potential career avenue.
What was your first impression on arrival into Oxford and Lady Margaret Hall?
My first impression of Oxford was that its community was very welcoming! I was greeted by a few college mentors when I entered Lady Margaret Hall (LMH) and I felt the social environment was very amiable. Not to mention how beautiful the campus was when I arrived – truly, being there in person gave me so much to look forward to in the next two weeks, and I still fondly look back to how amazed I was entering one of the world’s most prestigious universities!
What was the most exciting thing about being in Oxford?
People, community, and diversity! Everyday was a new opportunity to meet new people and discover the world through seemingly trivial but impactful conversations. I really ventured out and spoke to several people across campus, including the staff (most notably Kuya Julian who was also a fellow Filipino) and other students in Balliol college. There were so many stories and experiences shared within the two weeks I was in Oxford, and I found all of that through the small encounters I engaged in.
Did you make friends and what was the social side of the programme like?
Oxford really valued networking among students across various courses. The mentors in my campus prepared a lot of activities such as murder mystery, cake decorating, punting and so much more to ensure all of us met each other and collaborated throughout the two weeks. Because of this, I met so many individuals from Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, and Cyprus, all of whom I eventually grew very close with! You get to meet people of similar and contrasting cultures, and it was really interesting to share our own lives with one another and cultivate friendships because of it.
A very important question! What was the food like?
The Dining Hall food in LMH had a variety of options for breakfast and lunch, including dessert from the catering staff! I particularly enjoyed the food during our formal dinner where we went to Oxford’s other campus and ate a three-course meal with our cohort. We also had formal dinner at LMH during graduation day, and the catering staff really prepared well for it!
In the 16-18 age group, we are given the option to travel around Oxford to buy our own lunch after class. Our campus was far from the City center, so a few of my friends and I would usually take an eight minute walk to buy a sandwich and coffee from Viny’s Cafe. Other times, when we would feel adventurous enough, we would go to the City center and take out Asian cuisine when we’d miss our hometown occasionally! The city around campus provides a ton of restaurants for friends to chime in once in a while, and I highly recommend students do the same as well.
Did you enjoy the day trips and cultural visit? Where did you go with your peers?
In our excursion activities, we visited the oldest public museum in Oxford, The Ashmolean, and the Natural Science Museum where we even saw Einstein’s handwriting and species preserved since the late 1800s! We also had a tour around the multiple campuses of Oxford as well where we were briefed about the university’s history over the years.
Outside of Oxford, our campus cohort visited Cambridge University, and my peers also went to London to visit the Buckingham palace and the other heritage sites in England!
Did you like the course tutor and the other students on your particular course?
I absolutely admired my course tutor who was very open-minded to the questions I had about medicine and her CRISPR genetic research! I often found myself staying after class to discuss with her global medical news that she would bring up on genetics and ethic studies, and I would always leave class with something new from her. I most appreciate that she was willing to learn from her students as well through encouraging us to present our own understanding of the lesson to the class. She asked us various questions during these presentations to further deepen our thinking process, which also inspired me to interrelate medicine to several other aspects like legal ethics and business.
My classmates were very pivoted and had their own set of interests that they wanted to integrate within Medicine. I really enjoyed my class discussions with them especially when we had conflicting thoughts on certain medical methodologies, and I created really close friends who I still keep in touch with until today!
If there was one thing you could change about the programme, or your experience in general, what would it be?
One comment I would have on the program would be to improve its general contingency plans. The mentors did not expect that around five people on campus would get COVID, so when the news circulated that there were COVID positive patients, everyone was a bit frazzled on what to do including our college manager. Although the pandemic is already starting to resolve, I suggest that the mentors in the program be prepared for any unprecedented circumstance through setting a general protocol for all students to follow. This does not only apply in a COVID set-up, but in future summer programs if a student gets sick and would need immediate isolation or medical help.
If you were to recommend the programme to other students, what would you say?
Uncertain fields will leave you with a lot of discovery. Experiment with your options and choose the most ambiguous field you feel strongly about! Taking Medicine was a big risk for me but it was also a huge opportunity to find what I wanted and which topics meant to me the most. Oxford’s courses allow interdisciplinary viewpoints through intersecting multiple fields in one particular subject, so you’ll be given the opportunity to understand your course in all creative angles despite how new the subject may be.
Regardless of any course you choose, you will be networking with other people from different courses through intellectual discussion and collaborative activities. Use this as an avenue to understand multiple views of the same world through your peers’ cultural backgrounds and lives, and always be open to conflicting discussions!
You found the programme through Campus Oxford, and were supported by Ruth, was it helpful to have us there to support you?
I have been with Campus Oxford and Ruth since I discovered the program, and I can not emphasize how grateful I have been for their great support throughout my entire experience in Oxford! I appreciate that they were able to answer all my inquiries and concerns regarding the curriculum and what the program offered, and I especially appreciate how Ruth stayed in touch the entire duration. One of the greatest highlights of my experience was meeting her on one of my last days in LMH, and I truly would have not been able to experience Oxford at its fullest without her help. She has been very encouraging since the beginning, and I hope to meet her very soon again if I pursue studies in the United Kingdom!
Has the programme influenced your future plans in any way? We’d love to hear what they are if you are willing to share?
I believe Medicine has further showcased to me my strong interest for communication. I enjoyed defending my research and inquiring about the social aspects that could affect my peer’s medical reports, and I loved intersecting Medicine together with policy, economics, and its legal aspects. Although I do not plan on pursuing the medical field, I would not trade my experience in Medicine for anything else from the discussions, experiences, and people I have encountered in my Oxford journey. I am happy to have explored a new avenue to communicate about to the rest of the world, and most especially, I have learnt that Medicine itself is an expansive discipline itself consisting of highly driven people who wish to change their own community alike.
Thank you very much for your time, Christine, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.
Abigail
