Charity Insights

Last week!

Last week of my internship, mixed feelings. I can’t believe time flies so fast, and I am already at the end of the internship. I am pride of myself that I have managed to come to Oxford on my own and accomplished all the work, and even better, I have learned a lot! This was the first time I did internship outside of study, which gave me an insight into the working of global health institute, and my internship here also allowed me to gain ideas of a branch of research which was very distinct from my PhD study, and this meaningful and interesting internship project has opened a new door for me to think about medical science, which probably w ill be combined to what I have done and am doing to build a big picture of research for me in the future. During the work, I have learnt meta-analysis, and a powerful statistical tool-R programming, which will be very useful in my other research. I like the working environment and experience here, people come from different background-clinicians, engineers, philosophers, statisticians, programmers, etc., to share ideas and work efficiently as a team. Everyone is professional, dedicated and nice, they have given me very warm welcome and goodbye, and I really enjoyed the time working with them. They have taught me a lot, not only on techniques and academia, but also on spirit of working.

The last week, I was still learning R and repeating the R coding from another researcher to better understanding R coding in meta. It was difficult for me since I have had no background of coding, and had to learn from scratch. But I am happy that I picked it up quickly, and already can draw some of the graphs in meta-analysis now.

On the last week, we lunched together and had a nice chat in the sun everyday. On the second last day of my internship, I was invited to attend a birthday celebration of Laure, one colleague in the group, and had a very nice time with the group people at Oxford local pub. On the last day of my internship, we had a very nice cake break for my leaving, my supervisor said thank you for my work, everyone gave me a goodbye and wished me back some time in the future.

Thank you Charity Insigh ts, thank you George Institute to offer me this wonderful and meaningful internship opportunity. I hugely enjoyed it.

Read Last week! in full

3^rd blog

The working environment in Oxford is quite different from London where you can feel people always in a rush and make the big city very busy. I like London, because the busy city lights my thoughts, passion and dreams, and stretches me to develop myself quickly. Nevertheless, I also appreciate the beautiful, peaceful, and elegant culture of Oxford, which enables people focus on thinking deeply.   This week, my work in George Institute is on data extraction form large number of papers, which requires me to go through papers quickly, and spot useful information precisely and efficiently. At first, I feel very struggling, for everyday, tens of paper to read, and more than ten categories of information need to be extracted, and I have to be very careful, because some definition of information is ambiguous. As having read a lot of papers, I developed to be more skilled about systemic literature review and data extraction, and have accomplished much work in different studies. Even more rewarding, the works contributed by me will go into some papers for publication, which makes me feel very exciting. At the same time, another big challenge for me is to learn statistic skills, particular is R language. I have no programming experience before, so I have to learn from scratch. Now, as a beginner, I have to say it is very painful to learn the programming language for me, but I feel very excited about it, for I clearly know this skill is extremely powerful for very broad fields, and I already enjoy the learning, the logic flows. The colleagues in George are very helpful, and they gave me links to listen R classes, and taught me about meta-analysis research, which broadens my horizon of my major.   Also, this is really a good opportunity for me to experience another working ambiance, and culture. It is very quiet in the office in George; researchers are very devoted into their work, very independent, and very focus. I am now already settled in, and trying my best to make the most of the time to learn skills and knowledge. I think it is important and rewarding to experience different working atmosphere, and learn about real world of working.

Read 3rd blog in full

2^nd blog

Two weeks of work has passed, it is time to write them down.

What is my project about?

Blood pressure is associated with many problems as blood clots, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, etc, but it is unclear about the efficacy of blood pressure drugs on those diseases. Specifically, the project is focused on the effect of blood pressure lowering drugs on the prevention of atrial fibrillation. One of the questions below this topic is what kind of populations can benefit from blood pressure lowering drugs in preventing atrial fibrillation. Another question is whether there is a specific blood pressure lowering drug can make an effect on atrial fibrillation by a particular mechanism or all the drugs helping to obtain a lower blood pressure can be used to treat atrial fibrillation. The general project is to find the link between blood pressure lowering drugs and atrial fibrillation prevention on a meta-analysis scope. And my job is to support researchers in George Institute for Global Health to complete this meta-analysis by conducting a systematic review, extracting information from clinical trials and maybe also using STATA to conduct a meta-analysis at a later stage.

What have I learnt from the first two weeks?

The first task coming from George Institute for Global Health was delivered by skype, and the task was to sort data. It was the first time I had an online meeting, and given the task by skype. It was not that easy for me, since English is my second language, I was not fluent enough to communicate online at the beginning. Then I just told myself that I should be confident and believe in myself, because I had overcome all the difficulties before, and although in a lot of cases I performed not perfectly at the early days, I always put things on the right track afterwards, and achieved what I wanted eventually. I tried my best to focus on the requirement of the task, and took notes, and asked questions to get clear about how I should do to achieve it. After the skype meeting, I got on the work very quickly. To confirm I was on the right track, I sent the begin part of the work I had done to them for checking. Then I continued finishing the rest of the work. What I have learnt so far is to be confident, always ask questions to get clear enough about what the task is and how you could approach it. To make sure on the right track, split the big task into a small part and the rest, and send the small part of finished work to employer which can help you better understand the work and be confident about what you are doing and can also prevent futile work conducted under wrong approaches. However, it may also depend on the nature of the work and working atmosphere as well.

Read project and work progress in full

Just had a look at some blogs posted by previous charity insight participants, they are so amazing! Informative, interesting and full of fantastic photos! However, few of the posts have mentioned about the application process of the charity insight programme, which is useful information, and will be the starting point of my blog.

 

Why did I desperately want to participate the charity insight programme?

I have never had a proper job before, so I am always hoping to gain some working experience to get to know the outside world, and contribute what I have learned in the university to the real community. Also, as a PhD student, I have been always focusing on the specific and deep research field, and I realized that I need a way out for fresh air, and for fun.

 

For time constraints, it is much difficult for PhD students to gain an internship opportunity. Not like undergraduates, PhD students only have 4-week annual leaving holidays each year, while companies/organisations usually offer internships lasting at least three months for students, rather than short-time such as one month duration, for it takes their costs to train apprentice. Thus there are more barriers to get an official internship opportunity from companies/organisations as a PhD student.

 

The charity insight programme launched by career center in Imperial College makes it easier to find a host for short-time internship by providing a bursary to students, which reduces the costs from the organisations, and provides a valuable chance to students (especially for PhD students).

 

How did I find a charity organisation?

Thanks to career center, Amy-a very helpful and considerate career consultant has helped me a lot in finding a charity organisation. She not only provided information about organisations that previous students had worked for, but also told me some valuable charity websites to hunt for charity organisations. Since my PhD is on vascular science, I am willing to work for a health care related organisation. From the blogs posted on the career center website, I learnt about a charity organisation-George Institute for Global Health which would enable me work on real trials. Even better, I found a very interesting project which was related to vascular science, but was very distinct from my current PhD study, so it would provide me a good chance to work on the same field but from a very different perspective.

 

How did I approach it?

Yasmina-another excellent career consultant spent much effort on my CV and cover letter correction. Then Amy gave me the contact details from previous programme participants who had ever worked for the George Institute, and she helped me polish my email approaching to the organisation. After several emails, I successfully got the internship opportunity.

 

How about visa issues related to international PhD students working?

As an international student, we have strict visa rule that we can only work within 20 hours per week during the study. On this condition, I contacted international office in Imperial College, and was informed that PhD students were allowed to use annual leaving entitlement to work full time with a permission letter from their supervisor, which was definitely great news for me. Thanks to my supervisor’s support, I got his permission and working allowance during my annual leaving holidays.

 

I really appreciate all the help from career center and also all the other people who have given me a hand during the application process, and I will definitely cherish this opportunity to gain a wonderful internship experience.

Read some tips for future applicants in full