St Nicholas’ Educational Trust Scholarship

Emily is a first year Medicine and Surgery student and is the recipient of the St Nicholas’ Educational Trust Scholarship. 

I already have an undergraduate degree from Newcastle University, so I’m coming at this second time around. I studied Cellular and Molecular Biology for my first degree.  

I’ve always wanted to go into Medicine, but it just happened that I didn’t get the A-level grades that I thought I was going to get, so I didn’t get in the first time around. Hence, why I did a degree here as an undergraduate. I went through Clearing, and I knew that I wanted to stay local. So, being from Newcastle, and obviously it’s the best university ever (I’m biased!), I picked the undergraduate course here. I always wanted to try and go for Medicine again, once I had my degree, and I was lucky enough to secure a place. 

In terms of Medicine, I’ve really enjoyed the cardiovascular work we’ve been doing. The anatomy of it was really interesting and we’ve got such a good anatomy programme in the Medical School. 

Newcastle is just so friendly, and it’s such a good place to study. The University has a great support system in place. Any time you’ve got an issue, or need support with anything, they’re so quick at being able to get back to you and help you. It’s a great city too, you’ve got everything on your doorstep – the Quayside, a great city centre, and you’re close to the coast too. 

I’m trying to experience as much as possible. For example, I’m part of the Surgical Society and although I don’t necessarily want to go into surgery, I want to make sure that my options are open. My friend and I are also trying to set up a society for graduates who are studying undergraduate Medicine. We’ve found a group of about 25 of us in the year, but we had to try and find each other ourselves. The aim is to have socials, so people who are coming to Medicine as a mature student have the opportunity to meet each other. We just want to make sure that there is a safe space where people are able to get to know each other. 

My plans after university are to do the Foundation programme – I want to stay local, if I can, just because I love the North East. I’m not sure what I want to specialise in. In a dream world, I’d be able to incorporate the research I did on my last degree, with the things that I’ve learned in this degree. My dissertation was on induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, and I’d love to maybe work at the Centre for Life in a specialist post, but we’ll have to see because it’s still really early! 

Pluripotent stem cells is really modern research. It involves cells taken from a person and genetically modified to make them pluripotent again so that they can become any kind of cell. So, instead of using embryonic stem cells, or stem cells taken from a person’s bone marrow, we could create stem cells just from that person’s normal cells. Even skin cells – and that means that they would be perfectly matched to them so there wouldn’t be any risk of rejection or ethical concerns around the use of embryos. So, if I could do something like that, that would be great! 

I don’t get a student loan with it being my second degree. I have a maintenance loan, but I have to pay for the tuition fees myself. Fortunately, because I’m a graduate of Newcastle, I was eligible for discounted tuition fees, but it’s still a lot of money to pay every year for the whole time I’m at university.  

I really welcomed the opportunity to apply for the St Nicholas’ Educational Trust Scholarship, because any money is supportive towards paying tuition fees and purchasing resources. I’m dyslexic, and I find that physical copies of books really help my understanding and allow me to process things better. Medical textbooks are really expensive, so any amount of money helps towards buying those to really support my learning. 

I’m so thankful that I was awarded the scholarship. It’s great that it’s aimed at people from the North East. I think it’s really important that more people from the North East – particularly those from backgrounds where there is a lower progression into higher education – are given equal opportunities to those who might come from more affluent backgrounds. When it comes to Medicine, there is a high proportion of people who have come from backgrounds where they’re second or third generation medics – that’s not the case for me. So, I’m very appreciative. 

Any amount of money can make such a massive difference to any student on any degree, and they will really appreciate it. If people can afford to, I think it’s really worth doing.