When doing my A levels, teachers advised me that if I didn’t drop some of my extracurricular activities to focus on my grades, I would not reach my full academic potential. Stubbornly, I ignored their advice (and yes, my grades did suffer a bit), but this did make me start to worry about my future university experience.

Then my Birmingham Applicant Visit Day came along, and to my surprise, interviewing staff were actively interested an excited about my extracurricular work. I remember that even a bespoke brochure was printed out for me, with a list of the initiatives and societies/clubs that the Admissions Team thought I would be interested in! It was that level of effort in getting to know me, treating me as an individual and celebrating me beyond my exam results that instantly made me feel that Birmingham was my future home.

Ever since then I have felt incredibly lucky to have finally found somewhere where I could explore all of my outside interests, whilst still excelling academically. Never once was I told by a tutor, mentor or peer that maybe I was focussing on the wrong things or “spreading myself too thin”. Instead, I was given a network of supportive an enthusiastic staff and students keen to collaborate and celebrate others’ achievements. That’s what Birmingham is – it’s a supportive and caring environment that brings out the best in everyone.

During my MSci degree, I was given the opportunity to explore synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry, making novel potential anti-TB agents under the supervision of Prof John Fossey. I was also awarded an Undergraduate Research Bursary by the Royal Society of Chemistry to explore sustainable materials chemistry with Dr Zoe Schnepp, exploring biomass applications for water storage. It was the combination of both these research experiences, as well as a summer R&D internship at Unilever, that inspired me to pursue a PhD in Chemical Biology at Imperial College London. My current research brings together all the research interests I was able to explore at Birmingham and involves the design, synthesis and testing of novel potential therapeutic agents for cancer immunotherapy, using techniques across the disciplines of Chemistry, Biomaterials Engineering and Immunology.

As well as giving me the space to explore research and determine my future career path, it was through extracurricular activities that Birmingham prepared me for the “real world” and gave me confidence in teamwork, leadership, project management, networking, event organising and public speaking.

I have volunteered with at the Big Bang Fair every year for the last 7 years, starting from winning 1st prize at the South East regional heats in 2012 while still at School and all through my time at Birmingham. I become Head Judge earlier this year after I raised some concerns in 2019 about bias and lack of transparency in the judging process, which resulted in a reform of the process and reopening the senior volunteering roles for application.