Hello, I'm Lisa Hill and I did Biomedical Science at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 2010. I then went on to do a PhD at the University of Birmingham.
So I chose to study Biomedical Science at Birmingham mainly for the reputation of the University and also in the Medical School the staff were so enthusiastic about the subject you could see that they really cared about the students and about how you progressed. I just found it was a really good experience for me and I'd highly recommend it for anybody looking at Birmingham.
My degree really helped me prepare for my career now because it was directly related to the PhD that I did also at the University of Birmingham. And obviously my PhD then fed into my job now.
My current job is that I work as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. I work on diseases related to scarring in the central nervous system and I work on the translational side of science so I look at disease pathology and I find treatments for those diseases and try and translate them through to the clinic so that can have an impact on patients. The hours are quite long, but I don't actually feel like I come to work every day, I feel like it's it's something that I love to do so it's great that I get paid for something that I really enjoy and would probably like to do as our hobby anyway.
My advice for current students about their career after the degree would be to go to the Career Service. They are really good in opening up doors for you that you didn't realise existed. Also speak to your tutors if it's academia that you're interested in, they will have contacts that you can go and meet and discuss career options, but also be aware that just because you're doing a biomedical science degree it doesn't mean you can't go into non-related biomedical science jobs. Many of my peers went into industry, into banking, into many things, because this degree does give you all the transferable skills that you need to do that.
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