Marc Sinclair
Studied BSc Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Graduated 2008
I studied Medical Microbiology and Immunology at Newcastle between 2005 and 2008. One of the main attractions of the course was that there was a common year and a half between all disciplines, therefore allowing the students to obtain a broad knowledge of all of the essential areas of biomedical sciences. I had previously started a degree in Bioinformatics in Manchester, but decided to leave this course as it was too specific and didn't provide me with the scientific grounding that I thought was important. In addition to the breadth of the course, I was also drawn by the departments facilities and resources including the medical library.
After finishing my studies at Newcastle, I competed a masters in Integrated Immunology at the University of Oxford. I chose to did this masters as I wanted to build upon the Immunological knowledge that I had acquired during my undergraduate degree. After completing the masters, I took up a Research Assistant post at a lab in the University of Oxford, studying HIV resistance in various developing world populations.
Although I was offered PhD positions in London, I made the decision that I did not want to pursue a career as a research scientist, but instead would prefer to enter the world of business. I therefore applied for a number of graduate positions across both banking and management consultancy. I was fortunate enough to be offered a graduate role at J.P. Morgan in London on their Operations and Business Services programme.
I have been in this role for a year and am really enjoying the day-to-day challenges that it provides. I am one of only a few scientists that gained a place on the graduate scheme. I believe that my scientific mindset and approaches allows me to contribute ideas and approaches to problems that others would not think of. I am able to critically analyse data and process to determine where errors exist and where improvements can be made.
