Thomas Cross BSc Biomedical Sciences, 2016

Graduate

Being around such world-leading professors in the laboratories is incredible, it’s a close-knit family in biological sciences and staff are working on so many world-changing projects.

It’s been the best three years of my life. It’s not only been a degree, it’s been a lifestyle change.

At Southampton, there’s the opportunity to get involved in so many experiences laid on for students by the Union, I got the chance to run the University radio station as programme controller. I never ever considered radio before coming here but I took a punt, went along and even won awards for it. Sport-wise you can sign up for a rounders or football tournament and play with your friends against other teams from elsewhere in the University.

In the final year of my degree, I signed up for the new Bio-Education module. It wasn’t that I planned to be a teacher but I wanted to learn the skills you need for teaching to apply them elsewhere. Taking an in-depth report on Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease and teaching that to a 16 year old who knows nothing of neuroscience, that was a real challenge and very enjoyable.

In September I’m moving to GlaxoSmithKline to be part of its Future Leaders programme. I tried to get an internship with the company last year but they turned me down because they said I didn’t have much commercial awareness. So I got an internship in a bank to work on those skills and went back to GSK. After a long assessment process, they accepted me.

I’ve got two dreams. One is to be the next breakfast show presenter of BBC Radio One and the next is to be a CEO or Director of a pharmaceutical company because I want to make a difference in consumer healthcare.