With support and encouragement from both RCSU and the Faculty, the RCSA and the RCS BioChemSoc, held a very successful careers’ panel evening on Tuesday 11th February in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building on the South Kensington campus.
The event was jointly organised by BioChemSoc and RCSA presidents, Matthew Romero and Mike Munroe. Working together, they assembled a large group of undergraduate Biochemistry and Life Science students to hear the career stories of an exciting panel of eight RCS alumni (again mostly Biochemists or Life Scientists). The alumni panel, pictured above, consisted of Jamie Alldridge, Menelik Chen-Lee, Thomas Davis, Alex Ramirez, Noel Si-Tou, Dominique Kleyn, Jennie Munroe and Robert Pinchen and covered a wide range of age/experience cohorts as well as a fascinating array of careers including: patent law, consultancy, project management, start-ups, big tech, teaching and product safety.
Following a brief (five minute) overview of their academic backgrounds and careers, the panel went on to answer a series of pre-set questions from the students. Then, after an open forum question session, the panel joined the students for an hour-long pizza social. The social gave the students an opportunity to engage one-on-one with the panellists and this session was very lively and interactive.
Feedback, both during the event and afterwards, was excellent with students relishing the opportunity to quiz a high quality panel about career choices. BioChemSoc president Matthew Romero said he was delighted with how the evening went and felt it really hit the spot for the students who are in need of good careers guidance and insight. RCSA president Mike Munroe commented “I’m really excited that the evening was a success and we certainly plan to roll this careers’ panel format out to other RCS undergraduate groups as soon as we can. We would also like to establish these panels as annual events across RCS. Our main challenge at the moment is getting volunteer alumni panellists, so any alumni who are interested in helping should get in touch straight away at contact@rcsa.org.uk.”
Warm thanks and congratulations go to our panellists as well as to Matthew Romero and his BioChemSoc helpers!
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