Student blogs

From the beginning…

Hi everyone! I am Lucie, a PhD student in Bioengineering (synthetic biology and metabolic engineering specialisation) at Imperial. As this is a new blog, I thought my first post should tell you something about me, my career decisions and reasons for coming here. I would also like to share how my search for PhD courses and applying to Imperial looked like in case you found that useful. I think my way of getting here might be quite typical in the fact it’s atypical. There is no one way or recipe to get to a certain career or a PhD degree and often it’s lots of trial and error. My interest in biology started some 10 years ago when I participated in a Biology Olympiad in my home country, the Czech Republic. I discovered a fantastic community of people who kept motivating me to become a researcher in biology. After an exchange with a British school for one term, I started considering studying here and got intrigued by the system of supervisions in Oxford and Cambridge. Not sure how that came about but I happened to get an offer for Cambridge and studied there for my undergraduate Natural Sciences degree. It was fantastic for a relatively undecided person like me wanting to study natural sciences in its full breadth and not specialising too early. I can imagine though the degree may not be the best for everyone, especially if you are more specialised or don’t enjoy the very personal supervision approach there.

iGEM competition and synthetic biology

At the end of my second year, I discovered the world-wide iGEM competition. It is a competition of student projects in synthetic biology – or in other words, engineering of biology. Interestingly, it was my Czech physicist-chemist friend who told me about it in my first year already and he somewhat pre-determined my field of specialisation. On the other hand, I gave him the idea of studying in the UK with me so it’s fair. The iGEM competition also happens at Imperial and in my year (2016), Imperial actually won the competition. Their project was very cool and really well presented. The summer of brainstorming ideas, working on the project in the team and listening to all the amazing projects of other teams in Boston made the decision for me. I would specialise in synthetic biology for my PhD and hopefully life.

But what next?

I sort of assumed and always planned to do a PhD. Most of my closest friends were academics and this was the natural way to becoming an academic researcher. As my final year progressed, my decision got firmer. But I didn’t feel ready for specialising in one project yet for the next 3-4 years and also thought that not all possible options within synthetic biology would be for me. On the other hand, I didn’t like the idea of an expensive UK masters or long (2 year) masters in the EU either. I was also longing to travel, have a gap year (I only heard of it when I came to the uni abroad) and discover all the possible countries and projects that could define my PhD. So, I went on to do a year of internships and travelling. It was sometimes very tough to get funding for an internship in a foreign country for someone like me – a just finished undergraduate student, with not university affiliation. It may surprise some of you, but nobody really cared for my marks outside the UK. I just had a 2:i but that wasn’t the main issue, past experience was a lot more important. After all, I managed to get internships in IST Austria, IMG in the Czech Republic, AIBN in Australia and INRA in France. Those were all very valuable pieces of experience and I had fantastic mentors. I had my doubts about substituting a masters for this experience but it was worth it after all in my case.

During the year, I took a lot of time to figure out my specialisation and the country to study in. The UK made an impression on me. I really liked the community feeling of the universities here, particularly through the clubs and societies. I have joined so many in every year of my studies! Also, studying a PhD without a masters isn’t possible in many European countries than the UK and I was quite inclined to staying in Europe after my international experience. So, most of the programs I applied to were in the UK.

How the Imperial PhD came about

Having tried many supervisors and projects, I realised not all working environments would suit me. The DTP (doctoral training program) and CDT (centre for doctoral training) programs seemed like perfect options for me as they would usually offer more flexibility to try several labs and then decide. I had applied to quite a few and got some successes and some rejections – as usual. In January, I browsed through the Imperial website, although, to be honest, I never before believed London would be a place I would enjoy living in. It seemed very busy, expensive, crowded, huge and business-oriented. I found two supervisors of interest – Tom Ellis and Rodrigo Ledesma Amaro. Later on, I found there was so much more synthetic biology here and it’s actually one of the best unis in the UK for this field! But back then, I just contacted those two. This is where I learned that contacting your potential supervisors directly is probably one of the best things to do during the PhD hunt phase. Tom said his projects on the website were outdated but invited me to suggest what I would like to do. I introduced a project I had in the back of my mind since our iGEM brainstorming phase and it seemed to click, the lab had similar interests! Rodrigo (back then an independent research fellow just starting his lab) also seemed interested in me. When I failed to win the departmental funding, Rodrigo helped me to find another source of funding with an industrial partner. This way, Rodrigo became my primary supervisor and Tom secondary. I am very grateful to have both of them involved.

This was the only course I applied for that didn’t involve a rotation. I was going straight into the project. It was also in London so not something I imagined. But both of the supervisors made a truly good impression on me. I have asked their existing students how are they finding it here and all felt supported and happy in their PhDs. That was encouraging and I would recommend asking your supervisor for their student contacts – a good supervisor has nothing to hide! When I expressed my concerns about the cost of living in London, Tom came with a solution for me. Several members of his lab had experience with working in university halls as subwardens. It is a volunteering role, a lot about welfare and mental health of students, a bit on organising events, solving emergencies and discipline. Especially during that time, I was actively looking for ways to learn empathy, listening skills, and providing help in case those close to me had psychological issues. This seemed like the perfect training and also would help me save money in rent. I will surely cover this more in one of the future blogs but in short, after a crazy way from Paris to Wilson House halls for an interview that spring, I got in and this is my third year as a subwarden.

A few takeaways 🙂

I learned a lot about applications for PhDs that year. The most important probably was that getting in contact with the supervisor directly is extremely valuable. My potential supervisor helped me to find funding and a part time job that many people don’t know about and was perfect for me. Also, the close contact with them made me trust this is going to be the best option even though I wouldn’t have the rotations to try everything out beforehand. I also learned that the UK was the right place for me even though I had my doubts about Brexit – in the end, we still don’t know much and it’s been more than 2 years into my degree. But everything was a learning process and things figured themselves out after a lot of uncertain searches. Many of my friends said that if I stayed in Australia for too long, I would never leave as it’s so awesome. But for me, Australia just wasn’t the right choice, despite having a nice lab and supervisor. I didn’t enjoy living there as much. Everyone is different and the trials have really worked for me to find out what I want. After all, I got into a PhD degree at a great university, one of the UK top ones for my field, even with a 2:i undergraduate result and no official masters. Interestingly, places like Birmingham University rejected me straight away. Maybe I didn’t fit the course description too well. I find this is a common experience – we need to put in a lot of effort to find the right place and course that suits both sides and accept some rejections but it is all worth it in the end!