Catarina Marques - PhD Blog
Blog Instalment No 2
Hi, here I am again. So where was I? Ah… so, I got the scholarship! Owoooooooo! What a feeling! Finally I could relax (for a small moment)… and finally start to make plans! Planning the big arrival to Glasgow!
First of all, book the flights, and as soon as possible. Take in consideration regarding the date: when am I starting in the lab (April, when they start paying me – oh my... a year ago!); how much time is it needed to find a place to call home (hum… at least 1 week, remember you have to go and see with your own eyes where you’re going to live); what do I need to do when I land in Glasgow (register in the Uni, NHS etc…); do I need any special documents (need to know whether these will be ready on time, e.g passport, or Visa if out of the EU)? After considering all these, we (boyfriend came in the pack for his PhD studies in the city) decided to come only once, and to stay, instead of coming for house hunting, return, and then come back. As so, we choose to arrive in Glasgow about two weeks before starting in the first week of April. Ok, date set, now… which company?
Well… moving is a big thing… and a person wants to bring stuff to avoid spending money in things that you already possess and loads at the same time (like millions of clothes, winter ones I mean, because Glasgow is cold!!)… so a low cost airline one where bags are charged was out of question. Therefore we came in a “regular” company (which I’ll not name! – no publicity in here), and in the end of the day (because we purchased in advance) it was not that expensive. Next, look for a place to stay. The comments I saw on the internet!!! God! From bedbugs to boxers from a previous guest as a bathroom towel… I read of everything! The main problem is that if you are carrying bags, laptops etc… you need to trust the place where you are staying (flat hunting with bags is not practical…). Ended up staying in the same guest house I was upon the interview (so I knew it was not bad!): it was a good and wise decision!
During all this… look for flats! Yes… even if there were still more than two months and a half to go… I started to look on the internet, even if just for fun: letting agencies in Glasgow, general advertisement websites, and broad websites that store info from most agencies (e.g. http://www.citylets.co.uk/). Of course, the houses I saw during January and February were all taken when I came in late March but… I may say that looking for houses online was very useful: I started to realise that there was an evident relationship between location and price per month, and that two identical houses could have a difference of £150 just because were located in different areas of Glasgow. One thing I wanted to feel was safe, especially if there are days were you’ll need to stay in the lab until late, and no one wants to feel insecure coming back home. This discrepancy made me feel suspicious, so I asked my Supervisor if there were any “not recommended” areas in the city. After his reply, all the prices started to make sense to me. So, by March I started to contact several agencies (make sure they accept students, and make sure they realize we are post-grad students) and private landlords in order to book some visits for when we arrive. Then… just enjoyed family and friends, because I would only see them in the summer!
Arriving at Glasgow & House hunting
Finally, I arrived. It was cold (now, after a year I realise it was actually quite warm… but I was coming from a place where March is beginning to warm up above 20ºC)! First day we spent looking for the letting agencies offices and booking viewings, and met a private landlord to check on a flat. Oh… it was a big flat, really near the Uni… only with some minor problems such as a hole in the bathroom ceiling (that he promised would be fixed soon). Because of this, he was lowering the rent by £50, and needed an answer in two days. The flat was really nice, perfectly located and at a really good price. Anyway, we went flat hunting. I must say… well… I saw flats the size of that one’s living room for the same price per month, with the boiler next to the bed (yes… a gas… GAS BOILER… just besides your head while you are sleeping is not my ideal place to put a gas-driven device…), rat warnings in the stairs… etc. We ended up viewing around 11 flats and only the first and the last one felt minimally like home. So… we ended up choosing the first one and moved in the first day of April.
And so I had a house, just needed to finally START IN THE LAB!
Blog Instalment No 1
Hi, my name is Catarina Marques, and I’m a 1st year PhD student at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology (ooowoo that’s a big name..., let’s say just WTCMP) in the Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflamation (the 3I institute) of the University of Glasgow. Recently, I have been invited to start a “PhD Blog”, a challenge that I am pleased to take. Here I will share my experience as a PhD student in the Centre, and as a foreign student in Glasgow. So where to start?
My first visit to the University of Glasgow
1st Why Parasitology
So I’m Cat, and I just arrived in Glasgow last April, coming directly from Lisbon in Portugal. The very beginning starts still during my undergrad in Microbiology back home. Curiously, I never paid great interest in parasitology, and was more driven towards bacteria and viruses. However, in my last year, I was most fortunate to end up working in a malaria lab. I sincerely don’t believe in love at first sight but... this was pretty much the case... the parasite was incredibly challenging, way more than bacteria or viruses: I was completely captivated by the fact that it needs two hosts to survive and has throughout evolution completely adapted to both of them so well, that today (yes, XXI century...) remains one of the most deadly microorganisms in the world. Inevitably, I stayed there for my masters, during which I realised that I wanted to pursue a scientific career, and that of course, the next step would be the PhD.
2nd Why Glasgow
So… roughly two years ago, during Christmas holidays, I started to look for research groups on the web that could suit my interests. First, I knew I wanted parasitology. Ok, not all kind of parasites, I was only interested in protozoan parasites (single cell parasites) that are transmitted to humans through insect vectors, such as the malaria, the sleeping sickness, or the leishmaniasis parasites. Second, I wanted to have an experience abroad. I’ve met several people that spent some time during their academic education abroad and the opinion was unanimous, independently from the place: you get to know a new place, most likely a completely different culture and way to face life, a new lab, different ways of working and thinking, and different people, which all together are of high value for your development as a person and as a researcher. Third, it is the first time I left home, so I wanted to be relatively close (like 3-4 hours by plane). Four, I only speak English besides Portuguese, so I wanted to come to an English-speaking country. Taking the later three altogether, I decided to start looking in the UK. After looking at the universities rankings, the institutes that housed parasitology groups, and the grade each university asked in the English exam, I finally spotted WTCMP.
3rd Why this particular group
I started to look at the different groups webpage and the descriptions of the work performed in them. I must confess I felt interested in some of them, but after thinking for a while I eventually preferred the work performed in Dr Richard McCulloch’s lab: it was performed on the sleeping sickness parasite, Trypanosoma brucei, more specifically on the processes of DNA recombination, repair and antigenic variation (which allows the parasite to evade our immune system and consequently survive for long periods of time in our organism). This implied that most of the work would be based on molecular biology, an area where I did have very little working practice and in which I am particularly interested. So, finally I gained courage and e-mailed Richard I think in February. I did my best to write a motivating e-mail and atatched my humble CV.
The Interview! (= Panic) Oh the waiting… (it was not long but sometimes hours seem days, and days looked like weeks…) and when he replied favorably, I think I screamed. Then, in April (in a gap between the chaos caused by the Iceland volcano… - panic!) I got into a plane for the second time in my life (flying is absolutely not my favorite way of traveling…) and came to Glasgow for an interview. I must confess I was extremely nervous and thought I would do horribly. Fortunately, the presentation went well and I was quite inspired in answering the questions. I was accepted, and had time to discuss with Richard possible projects. For the rest of the day… I just wandered about Glasgow (what I know now to be the West End and City Centre). Surprisingly, I really liked the city (at least the small bit I had time to see) and somehow I felt comfortable.
The Scholarship
The next step was the application for the scholarship. When I contacted Richard I already had in mind to apply for a Portuguese scholarship, from the Ministry of Higher Education: most people I knew had that scholarship and I knew the applying process and the likelihood of getting it (and it is quite good). So, we ended up deciding on a project, I wrote it up, and applied to the scholarship, roughly at the beginning of September. Knowing the other year’s calls for the same funding body, I knew the results would probably be only revealed by the end of November, beginning of December. So until November I just focused on writing, submitting and defending my master’s thesis while still working in the same lab, in Lisbon. After defending in late November, I started to get really nervous. Complete silence. Not even an e-mail. Nothing. Everyday I went to work and asked my fellow colleagues that were also waiting for the same thing as I: a reply from the funder. And then December came, and there was Christmas. Everyone knew that it would come out either before, or after Christmas… but nothing. By that time I had already started to follow a blog from the PhD and Post-Doc association. Everyday there was a gossip saying that it would be that day after noon or whatever… but nothing. Around the same time I heard news reports: Portugal is in crisis, crisis in the parliament, cuts everywhere… PANIC! SERIOUS PANIC! The funding comes from the government, are they cutting the scholarships this year?? Is that why they are taking so long? PANIC! If they are cutting, of course they are cutting off first the scholarships for people going out of the country! PANIC, PANIC and more PANIC! Christmas and New year’s came… and nothing. My refresh button on my e-mail inbox was doing overtime (is every 5 min to much?). By this time I already started to look for alternative funding and was writing applications. Finally I got back to work, felling completely miserable.
Well, we all know that everything happens when we are most busy. I think I’ll never forget this day. On the 6th of January I arrived into the lab at 8 o’clock. I had planned an important experiment that would finally say if the conclusions I’ve taken in my master’s thesis were confirmed. So, there I was, my Supervisor at the time at my side, both of us dissecting a massive amount of malaria-infected mosquitoes for the last hour when thel ab door opened and two girls from my lab enter screaming, and hugging me (the poor mosquito I was dissecting could not be used any further). It took me several seconds to understand it all: I GOT THE SCHOLARSHIP!
The next minutes involved me running to the lab to check the list on the computer (one other girl had also applied so she saw the e-mail for her, and both our names on the list), I logged into my e-mail just to make sure the girl with my name was really me and not another girl with the same name, I check my boyfriends name was on the list, I checked friends names (yes, we all applied to the same…), scream, hug people, the other girl started crying with happiness, I criedy with her as well, and I finally got back to my mosquitoes. Later, when the adrenaline levels lowered a little bit, I e-mailed Richard giving him the good news.
Next step: head to Glasgow
Watch this space for the next installment of my PhD Blog
Cat.