A Day in the Life of… an Oxford University Student

Day-to-day life at Oxford University

As a student at Oxford University, you are forced to quickly acclimatise to a high-pressure environment, juggling heavy workloads with competitive sport, a vast range of clubs and societies, as well as finding time to spend with friends. Yet, as I started the third year of my biology degree, the bar was raised even higher. Finals and dissertations were looming in the near future and all of a sudden there was a manic rush of finalist students all applying to grad schemes and looking for jobs.  The initial highly competitive nature of applying to Oxford felt minor compared to competing with students across the globe to secure high-flying jobs in The City.

Luckily for me, I still have one year to go, and the craze of job hunting to look forward to! My Masters project next year explores the diagnostics of infectious disease, focusing on Meningitis in the Meningitis Belt in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Starting off my degree as someone who had no clear idea of what they wanted to do in the future, I seem to have found myself on the intriguing path that leads to disease biology and the pharmaceutical industry.

Career paths and job opportunities

I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work at tranScrip this summer and broaden my understanding of how the pharmaceuticals sector operates as well as develop new, indispensable skills. I am rapidly realising the unique set of roles that tranScrip offers compared to many of the big pharma companies, that so many of my university colleagues are applying for. tranScrip is a multi-disciplinary team, meaning that in my first day in the office, I had the chance to meet people working in a huge variety of sectors. I was exposed to project manager meetings, being introduced to various clients and experts as well as being presented to by tranScrip’s marketing strategy team, learning how they intend to continue to grow and thrive in the future.

The next couple weeks will comprise of training sessions in various therapeutic sectors such as infectious disease, learning the intricacies of commercial and medical affairs, key partner meetings and much more. As a biology student we are rarely exposed to medical areas other than infectious diseases and the odd autoimmune disease.

Working at tranScrip, I will be able to explore other sectors such as oncology, respiratory, CNS and internal medicine – just to name a few. The flexibility and variety that I have been exposed to is inspiring and I am sure I will finish my work here with indispensable skills, as well as a new and enthralling perspective of the future.

Summary

Despite only being part of the way through my work experience, I already have an extremely in-depth and exciting overview of the pharmaceuticals industry. The opportunity to meet disease experts and scientists, leading and revolutionising their areas of expertise is thrilling and I am eager to see where it takes me in the future.

Flic Gabbay, Managing Partner at tranScrip commented: “We are delighted to give the opportunity to Sasha for a work placement in tranScrip and share our passion for drug and device development within the pharmaceutical ecosystem.

The range of companies our pharmaceutical physicians, scientists, project managers and commercial staff support is extensive, covering projects from early phase development to guiding products through registration and launch and ensuring safe oversight after marketing. Most of our programmes are global and with many in rare disease as well as the major therapeutic areas, and of course, our programmes in COVID-19.

I am thrilled Sasha is enjoying the experience, her enthusiasm and interest is infectious, and we have all been really impressed by her communication skills. I hope we are contributing in some small way to sowing the seeds for an exceptional pharmaceutical developer of the future.”