Episode 3. Step Out

Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome to access granted the stories of yourself most inspiring students get ready to embark on journey filled with triumphs, challenges and everything in between. We are about to dive into extraordinary life of our incredible guests who breaking barriers, defining expectations, and living the mark on the wall.

Speaker 2  0:21  
But hey, this isn’t your average storytelling podcast. We’re about to infuse some weight playfulness and a dash of the unexpected into each episode. So sit back, adjust your headphones and get ready to be inspired and moved

Speaker 1  0:40  
your access is now granted.

Speaker 2  0:59  
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Access granted. This is Yu Xin, connecting virtually from China. This is our third episode, and we are so honored to have Scott here with us today as our very new guest.

Unknown Speaker  1:13  
Hi,

Speaker 1  1:14  
Scott. My name is caxi, and you can just call me happy. I’m one of your hosts for today’s podcast. Let’s talk about your story in yourself. So I have several questions for you. Could you just tell us a little bit about yourself first?

Speaker 3  1:34  
All right? Well, thanks for having me on. Happy. It’s very nice to be here. My name is Scott. I’m 22 years old. I was a student at UCL, studying clinical sciences ibsc, okay,

Speaker 4  1:51  
like, what made you decide to pursue the higher education?

Speaker 3  1:55  
Probably necessity, I’d say part of it was just it seemed like the next sort of step, you know, you I feel like, culturally here it’s, you know, you go to secondary school, and then you kind of expected to go off to uni. And I had no problem with that. I was excited to continue my studies. And I say necessity, because the career I’ve chosen is medicine, and in order to practice medicine, you you must have medical degree. So it was a no brainer. So that’s why I went off to uni.

Speaker 2  2:26  
Yeah, I guess that’s a common reason for us all necessity. So Scott, we all know that you previously studied at another university. What drove you to UCL? Then? Sure?

Speaker 3  2:43  
There’s a couple reasons. So one of them was definitely that its location being in London. I really wanted to study here in the capital, and I was looking at Imperial UCL and St Mary’s, or Queen Mary’s. Sorry, mixing up with St George’s. And, yeah, I liked the the central London location. It was close to everything. So that’s the location part. Obviously, it’s an extremely prestigious university. It’s well renowned, and I suppose bit of ego there. I wanted to feel proud of going to a world leading university, and also my my best friends study at UCL as well. So that’s just some of the reasons and the course as well. So I was, I was torn between studying clinical sciences at UCL and studying remote medicine at Imperial course wise clinical sciences. The pros were that it was quite general, so I could really explore whatever sort of interested me. And I liked the freedom of that. And on the other hand, the remote medicine was sound like a really unique opportunity, because it was all about the practice of medicine in remote, harsh environments, and there was opportunity for travel as well that enticed me. But I think ultimately I spoke to some people who went to both unis, and I was seeking, not just like an academic sort of life. I also wanted a good bit of social, social life as well, and I just really wanted to stay in London. So eventually I chose UCL, and I don’t regret it one bit. And I didn’t get in the first time. I did apply, but I didn’t get in the first time round when applying to university. So this time, I was determined to to make sure that I got in. So yeah, I was obviously UCL is very enticing, but also I seeped greener pastures.

Speaker 1  4:51  
Thank you for sharing with us. This has been truly comprehensive. Why you came to UCL. Eventually we understand that you. Reached from another university to yourself, yeah, like, your achievement changed as well for applying to yourself, like you applying to yourself for several years, one is being rejected, and the other year have been successful.

Speaker 3  5:17  
Oh, certainly it’s done a lot for like, I suppose my Yeah, sense of self accomplishment. I consider it one of my, yeah, yeah, top, top achievements, certainly, yeah. It weighed on me a lot, not not getting into UCL the first time around, not getting into London when I didn’t get there the first time around, I felt sort of my belief in myself went down a bit. I was like, oh, maybe, maybe I can’t do everything I put my mind to, and it definitely, definitely weighed on me. So this time around, when the opportunity came along, I was like, right? We are doing everything. I’m not leaving anything on the table. I am getting it. How do like,

Speaker 1  5:59  
all the teacher resources here at ESL. Do you get psychic about this?

Speaker 3  6:04  
I think just like the uni itself, like the campus is really great. There’s so many libraries, yeah, library Yes, study resources, study rooms, yeah, like, and then just more like, student life, things like, all the cafes are great. There’s so much, so many places to get drink and food and and I use them a lot. The libraries were great. And being able having it all on campus as well, centrally, and sharing the study space with, you know, other students from, you know, a myriad of other courses, I just felt really like integrated in the like student community. We’re all working towards the same thing, even though we’re all doing different courses. You know, we all want to do well and that, suppose that energy, atmosphere. I like it a lot. For me, I know some people really like to work on their own, in their room, whatever. But for me, it’s I like to be in a space where other people are doing what I’m doing too, right? Yeah, and that seeing everyone work hard makes you want to, at least for me, same. And then I suppose the course, the nature of the course, it was a lot smaller. So I suppose I should also explain, like, what the opportunity was that allowed me to come to UCL. So studying medicine, you can it’s five years, but you can make it six years by doing what’s called an intercalated year intercalation. That’s essentially where you take a break from your studies in medicine for a year, and you are free to study a year of another degree. It’s, it’s you, I don’t think it’s you can do anything at all, like you can’t just, you know, do medicine for three years and then hop over to, like, architecture or something. It’s sort of medicine aligned. But it’s still an opportunity to do something different, often something that’s quite niche in specific. Hence why it’s had this one year course built for it. But the really appealing thing was that you could do it at another uni. It wasn’t just your home university. So I jumped at the opportunity. So studying clinical sciences at UCL medicine is a very large course, very large cohorts, often upwards of 300 students, and it’s easy to feel lost in the sea of, you know, just people all doing the same thing, big lecture halls, and you just a spec in the in the room. But for this course that we only had 14 students, I think, in total, so it felt a lot more we all felt a lot more close to each other. It was more, I don’t have intimates the right word, but like you, you’re able to build more of, like, a rapport with professors and stuff. Yeah, I would like, email my professor sometimes and I’d get a reply, like, half an hour later. Okay, there was never, like, a set time, it was, but that was really good. It was, like, felt really accessible. I felt really supported. I had some I had a clear sort of line of communication with someone who could help me with whatever problems I had, whereas with the big cohort here our course, they knew us very well, especially was the end of the year, and they’re able to be able to help in a more meaningful way. So that was really good. Yeah, there’s STEM courses, there’s arts and humanities and everything in between. Like, you can meet, yeah, you can meet people who just do just about anything at UCL, even courses that you never heard of and that that really appealed to me, as well as the fact that it was a very global university as well. Like I, I really enjoy meeting people from other countries, other cultures, the friendship group that I’ve got here after this year, I think all of us, I think only two of us, are probably British, the rest are from, you know, far afield in the world. It’s great meeting all these people like you. Learn so much. Just like, for example, I mean, my best mate here, who I literally only met, probably, like, near to the day a year ago, called August Danish guy. Like, you know, there’s similarities, of course, in our cultures and being European and stuff, but it’s those little differences and how, you know, like, Oh, we don’t have this in Denmark. Or, like, oh, that’s different. You know, the way you guys do this interesting, absolutely. Yeah, it gives you so much to talk about culture shock. Yeah, 100% and I think that’s great. And I think that is a, maybe not just a UCL thing, but it’s, it’s a London quality, because London is an extremely multicultural city, and I think it is, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s really great for it versus, you know, probably other parts of the country, which are, of course, have traffic from other countries as well, but it’s just not as concentrated as here in London. It really is a melting pot. So like this year, I I really wanted, I mentioned the social part. I really wanted to throw myself out there and just meet all these new interesting people, and I absolutely did, UCL facilitated that really well.

Speaker 2  11:06  
Glad to know that your time here at UCL has been enjoyable, and our audience can definitely identify the same dynamic, the same passion here, however, we could all imagine how terrifying it is to move into a new university. Are you willing to share a tough time you might have gone through and how you handle it at UCL? Hmm,

Speaker 3  11:31  
okay, that’s a good question. Yes, certainly. I think going to university first is a very big thing, and then obviously switching part way through is, is into a new environment. Indeed, it’s, it’s challenging in in familiar and different way. Because obviously, you’re, you feel like a fresher again, that was a weird feeling. But at the same time, you are older, you’re wiser. You’ve had, you know, you’ve had time as an adult to build those sort of life skills, right? So, you know, the shock of, I don’t know, throwing your laundry in the basket and, you know, having it not magically appear on the bed the next day is, you know, is that sworn off by now, you already know how it works for me, switching universities. I mean, I couldn’t wait. I think it’s more of a unique case, because I wanted to get away from my previous university quite a lot and come here, so I welcomed every single change that there was. I really didn’t face that many hardships. I’m not gonna lie. I really have had the most perfect time here. But I suppose, right, right at the start it was, it was daunting, because for me, it was like, Okay, I’ve I’ve achieved my goal. Now I’ve got what I wanted. I’m here now. But I didn’t, you know, I I didn’t know if it was gonna work out. I felt like, you know this was the place for me, and I’d finally settle in and belong, but I didn’t know if you know. I didn’t know for sure if it was gonna happen. So just that initial uncertainty and being totally, you know, having a fresh slate was both great and scary, because, you know, what if i What if history just repeats itself and I just end up having a, you know, not so great time. Don’t make loads of friends. But fortunately, right off the bat that it didn’t happen, I met these wonderful people within the first couple weeks. And I definitely owe that to UCL. Welcome Week sort of period. They really put on a lot of opportunities for you to meet all these different people, apart from the sort of slightly corny name, speed friending was, was fantastic because that’s where I met my friend group, and just being being forced all together in this room, be like, you know, talk was, yeah, it was good. It was needed, you know, because

Speaker 4  13:48  
to find the similarities, certainly differences.

Speaker 3  13:53  
The first, I think, the first couple sort of events I went to, I met some I met some nice people, you know, you do the thing where it’s like, what’s your Instagram and all that stuff, what’s your number and and then you probably never see each other again, yeah, just the way it goes. But after that initial period of, I don’t know anybody, haven’t got any friends, yeah, that initial period was very short, and I met wonderful people. The start of my course was a bit different. It took a bit longer for me to settle in there, I think. I mean, I spoke about how the cohort for this course was very small, which ended up being really great, because we all got to know each other really well. But at the start, it was almost sort of like it worked against you, because this is all there is. So if you don’t get along with these people, that’s, you know, you’re kind of stuck with them. So yeah, even at the start, if I felt a little bit lonely, I had my the friends that I’d made earlier. Other than that, it’s been, it’s been fantastic. Of not really encountered any any problems. Happy to say.

Speaker 2  14:58  
It’s fantastic to learn. And you find your experience here so satisfying, but we are still curious about whether you have ticked off everything from your bucket list at UCL,

Speaker 3  15:11  
not totally. I mean, obviously I want to do well with my course, but I only well. I’ve only got a year in London, and then after that, I have, I have two more years back at my old university to finish the medicine course off. So I knew my time was limited. And because of that, it sort of created this urgency, like I really wanted to get everything I wanted to do because I only had a small, yeah, exactly a small time frame to do it. So even if I wasn’t totally, you know, comfortable at first of like, you know, going to all of these different things, I knew that, you know, hey, you’ve got to do it, otherwise you’ll never get around to it. Now and I can, yeah, I happily say that I’ve done a lot of the things on my bucket list for this year. There’s still some things, you know, I haven’t been ticked off yet, but I’ll be visiting. I’ll be getting those done. A lot of them was just sort of London centric, things that I wanted to do, because this city is just, there’s so much going on. UCL wise, I do wish that I’d explored the sort of theater side a bit more, because I really into combat sports, and I knew I wanted to do one of those. I knew that realistically, I probably only have time to do one sort of society thing at the uni if I wanted to, suppose a, do well in my somewhat well in my course, and B, to do all of the the other London focused things with my friends that were not to do with the university. And I think I hit a good compromise. Yeah, I do wish that I had done more like drama theater, but, you know, I’ve learned from that, and I plan on picking it up next year back at my old uni. Yeah, I mean, I explored pretty much every library section of the campus. I yeah, I can say that I’ve definitely, yeah, explored UCL to maybe not its fullest, but a lot of it. Yeah,

Speaker 4  17:15  
I’ve seen your maps before. Yeah. Highlighted locations

Unknown Speaker  17:19  
Absolutely yeah. So yeah. Tip for anyone listening,

Speaker 3  17:24  
save a pin on wherever you go exactly, and on Google Maps just like, favorite it or whatever, yeah. And at the end of your Well, after a while, you have all of these memories low back on Yeah. And you can if you’re ever wondering, like, what should I do today? Or I’ve got a friend coming over, what should I do with them? You just look at the map and you go, Ah, there you go. I remember that place that was great.

Speaker 1  17:48  
So how do the things that you still offer match up with your goals?

Speaker 3  17:53  
I’d say the main thing was support. The level of support. You just need a lecture room and some chairs just have people listen to whatever the lecturer says, Yeah, I say the support, just in general, and also the level of teaching ability from the professors at UCL. But speaking from personal experience, how I experienced it. It was nothing but stellar. It was great, extremely knowledgeable. And not just knowledgeable, but being able to convey the message and teach that skill was definitely there, because there is a stark difference between just knowing a lot about something versus teaching it. And I feel like, because I only have my old university, compare it to it was a lot of Yeah, people just knowing a lot about a subject, but not really being able to teach it very well. But here at UCL, the methods employed to get their message across was really good, and I understood everything quite easily. If there was ever a time where I didn’t quite get something, I felt no. I felt that being able to put my hand up and ask a question that, you know, maybe seemed silly to someone else, I felt support enough to do that. Whenever I had problems which were rare, I could reach out and I wasn’t ignored. You know, they had the professors helped me to the best their ability. One example that comes to mind for the main example really was when I was doing applying for my research project, which was the the big the big module, the bit that you’re going to spend all your time on, what all the previous semesters have been working up to and when I made my choice project, initially, I thought, Yeah, happy to get started, excited. And then when it did begin, I very quickly realized, Oh, this is not for me. But anyway, when I yeah, when I started projects, I was like, No, this is yeah. This doesn’t interest me. Yeah, and yeah, it just, it really pushed me out the project, and I just didn’t want to be there anymore, and it really affected me. So I reached out to my courses, and I said, you know, you know, hey, I’m really not having a good time on my project right now. I know it’s been a couple weeks in, but is there any way that you can help me change to something else? And she was extremely helpful. Eventually, I think a week or week and a half later, I was on a different project, which I did well in and I was genuinely interested in so, yeah, it worked out for the best. You

Speaker 4  20:30  
know, as for me, I think UCS professors cares more about the students mental health, like they care about the study as well, but your mental health should be put on the top, on the priority. So that’s why I really love UCL.

Speaker 3  20:49  
Yeah, 100% I think, yeah. Now that you said that, it’s reminded me, yeah, like, the amount of like, like, the awareness sort of campaigns here at UCL, like, you see the posters and stuff, yeah, it’s easy to sort of say that you’re going to care about, like the students, you know, like mental health and stuff. But then when actually comes to it, like they don’t really do much. But yeah, I can say, from my own experience, that UCL has delivered on their, you know, promise to try and maintain students mental health?

Speaker 5  21:22  
Yeah, I think they don’t have many priorities for you, whoever you are, wherever you’re from, and scored if someone is new here, what advice would you give them to make friends and user help? And

Unknown Speaker  21:37  
if someone is new here?

Speaker 3  21:39  
Oh, great question. Yeah, very happy to answer that. Well, firstly, if you’re new to UCL, go to the Welcome Week. It’s like a two, two to three week long period at the start of the year, with it starts before term starts, and extends a little bit into it as well. Definitely take advantage of the very start of it. That’s where you know, everyone comes together. Everyone’s looking for the same thing that you are, and the opportunity available is often your sport for choice. I couldn’t even attend all the things that I wanted to attend. Yeah, I mentioned earlier, but yeah, speed friending was really great, if you can get over the sort of initial awkwardness, just for anyone doesn’t know, yeah, speed friendly was basically where you’re sat on a table with like seven or eight people, and you’d have like three minutes or five minutes, something like that, to speak to the person next to you. And they had some prompts as well, and they

Unknown Speaker  22:43  
had some board games and stuff on the tables

Speaker 3  22:47  
to sort of encourage conversation. And yeah, you switch out with different people a lot. You you switch tables at one point as well. So if all the people on your table aren’t quite your vibe, you can move on to a different one, and the likelihood that you’ll meet like a long, long term friend, one of those events is very high. I met, think, three of my current friend group at that event. So yeah, go to all of those. Go and get out of your comfort zone as well. For example, I went to, I attend a lot of post grad events, because, although I’m not technically a post grad, I was like, the age of one because I’d studied three years of I wasn’t 18 anymore. I wasn’t like a fresher who’s obsessed with getting as drunk and partying as much as

Speaker 4  23:39  
Do you feel any difference from this part, like the age,

Speaker 3  23:43  
Oh, certainly, gosh, yeah. The the the difference in someone who’s just come to Union is 18, and someone who’s a post grad and is like, 2122 something like that, is, yeah, it’s huge. Really, yeah, gosh, yeah. So I really wanted to meet people who were my own age. So a lot of these post grad events were really great for that. Yeah, when I say, get out of your comfort zone. I attended

Unknown Speaker  24:15  
post graduate

Speaker 3  24:17  
cheese and wine tasting, if you can get over the initial sort of pretentiousness of the activity. It’s quite fun, and it’s a lovely venue. Pretty good wine, pretty good cheese. And I met, I met pretty much the rest of my friend group there as well. So most, most people are going to be like, I wasn’t particularly into wine tasting, whatever, but not many people were. It was just an excuse to meet people and get some free alcohol.

Unknown Speaker  24:46  
And yeah, I met my girlfriend there. So

Speaker 3  24:50  
if I hadn’t gone to that thing where I wasn’t I would never have gone to before without sort of pushing myself out in my comfort zone. Yeah, I never would have met her. Yeah, so do a sport, do some sort of society activity. UCL is a very social place. Just enjoy Yeah, just enjoy it, man. Just Yes. Don’t be shy. Don’t be shy. No, speak to people. Yeah, you know, obviously with you know, some social awareness, don’t be a total weirdo. But yeah, just that, it’s fine, yeah, yeah. And the society, I almost forgot the society fair is also a really great place to meet people. You just sort of go through all the cloisters, and there’s all these stalls. There’s like a two day event, and there will be guarantee, there’ll be something there for you, and you’ll meet like minded people, and you’ll probably meet some not like minded people, who are, you know, lovely, but different, and that will be great, yeah, just, just throw yourself out there. Don’t keep to yourself. Take advantage of what UCL has to offer and just have fun. Okay,

Speaker 4  26:04  
and what do you think your time at UCL will help you in the future? I

Speaker 3  26:13  
suppose on paper, just to start off, with a degree from UCL is is good, prestigious. It’s probably got some, some weight behind it. You know, obviously, going to university is an incredible achievement in itself. But yeah, some, just the way it is, you know, some, some places are more prestigious than others, you know, and UCL is, you know, certainly, you know, near the top even, even just ignoring the weight of, you know, the the UCL sort of name, the connections that you you make here at this uni, and the networking that you can do will put you in really good stead for a job in the future. I know a lot of people who have through their projects on their courses, because UCL has a lot of partnerships with a lot of really big, important sort of companies and brands. Just being able to sort of be in those circles, just by virtue of being associated with UCL, can open a lot of doors and just being in that room, getting in that room, and being able to someone and make an impression. You know, a lot, some of them have gotten job offers off of it. It’s, it’s less, sort of relevant to a degree like medicine, because, you know, at the end of it, you get a job.

Speaker 4  27:29  
But networking is important, getting to know more people, yeah,

Speaker 3  27:36  
knowing professors and, you know, people who are higher in the profession, is great. I’ve got my elective coming up next year, which is essentially where you do a you sort of design your own placement for a couple months. And, yeah, I’m talking to some of the people that I’ve met here at UCL, some of the doctors and surgeons. And that’s cool, yeah, and just and getting some things organized. If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t be able to be able to do that. Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of interesting people that you meet, famous people as well, that you can, that you can meet the coup. Oh, well, I knew, for example, that I listened to a if anyone knows the radio show Desert Island Discs, which I heard, I think it’s on the BBC. I might be wrong there, but it’s, it’s a radio show. Anyways, very famous radio show. And some of the guests who’ve been on are, you know, people high up in academia, and some of them have been UCL professors? Yeah, one of them was a very interesting man called Professor Hugh Montgomery, who was doing some genetics research which into genes that sort of predispose us or make us more adept at certain physical characteristics, for example, like you could have, like, the gene that predisposes you to being naturally quite strong, or naturally quite fast, or having, you know, being able to run long distances, for example, like stamina. And he was talking about this research, and I was like, wow, that’s, that’s really cool. And then I looked him up, and he was a professor at UCL, and I probably could have met him if I wanted to, but eventually my I considered working with him for my research project, but I didn’t want to go down the genetics route. Later on, I wanted to go down more of a surgical route, so I did a more surgical related research project. But yeah, if you make the you know, if you if you want to, you can definitely meet people you know. Just speak to someone, and they’ll put you in contact with this, but you’re at the same unit. And also, I mean, there’s a lot of famous people who’ve come out at UCL as well, like that. You know, they love to talk about how Christopher Nolan studied here and Coldplay, you know, came out of UCL, yeah? So you never know, maybe, maybe you’ve walked past a future celebrity. Yeah?