I wish more people could have the opportunity to study out of their countries
Hi! My name is Esteban, I am a physician surgeon trained in Mexico and currently working as Medical Director in a private clinic in London applying all the knowledge I’ve learned along my experience during my Master and Doctorate.
As an overseas student, my journey began in when I decided to explore other roads and together with Across the Pond I could achieve my goals to be accepted and complete my enrolment process to a UK University. I decided to select Queen Mary University due to the program offered in Regenerative Medicine.
At that time my vision was focused on bioprinting and tissue engineering. The classes taught during the program helped me further expand my horizons in the field of biotechnology, biomaterials, and new therapies, including gene therapies, cell reprogramming, and cell-free therapies. However, it is important to mention that classes in English can be challenging at first and I had to get used to the British accent, but also to other international accents of non- British teachers or just other international colleagues.
About the learning process, the lecturers promote the autonomous work. I valued this dynamic not only because it is different compared with my previous academic experiences, but also because it allowed me to manage my time according to my needs.
The social life was unforgettable, I meet people from different countries something that still happening in this unique city such as London. I need to highlight that the accommodation offered by the University was very helpful to do this and meet my first British friends. This helped me more to understand slowly their culture including their unique humour sense. Also, I had the opportunity to travel to other European countries and witness the great diversity of traditions, food, and weathers in the world.
All these experiences helped to convince myself to continue my journey in the UK. So, I decided to pursuit a PhD in the field of cardiac repair and regeneration using extracellular vesicles derived from stem cells. The PhD lasted 4 years and half and all those years consolidated my experience as researcher with a great variety of skills developed during my journey. Is hard to synthetise my PhD experience in few sentences however I can say that after completing it my general vision of the medicine has been refreshed and I can find myself standing in the front of the field with a clearer vision of the upcoming advances in medicine.
Finally, I wish more people could have the opportunity to study out of their countries and immerse in a city where people all over the world come to interact. I fascinating to see the differences between humans and even better to learn from each other drinking a coffee or a beer in a pub, enjoying a festival, having a picnic in the multiple parks during summer or just a walk through the winter markets, that makes me feel alive.
Overall, study in London has been a great experience in my life for some reason I continue in this city. I would encourage to anyone reading this post to pursuit your goals and work hard but at the same time been patient and disciplined.
- Esteban