Well… this was fun.

Had a great weekend at the Laidlaw Foundation’s Laidlaw Scholars Conference. It was a great opportunity being able to present my research work in front of around 60 people, and I did get some valuable insight during the Q&A session to carry into future projects. Scrabbling around trying to put my presentation together two nights before that fateful Saturday, especially trying to trim two years' worth of work and knowledge into a six-minute presentation, was an interesting and extremely caffeinated eight hours, to say the least. Jokes aside, getting to know other Laidlaw scholars was also a fantastic experience, discussing not just our own research projects but also various interests and memories we shared as separate contingents of the same program.

I look back on this experience, almost a month after, especially fondly. For someone who doesn't foray much outside of medical research, learning about so many new disciplines in the span of three days was certainly an eye-wateringly difficult challenge. Yet, despite having to grapple with topics spanning law, geography, the arts, economics and so much more, I didn't find myself drifting back to the comfort of the medical field. I found that my appetite for learning about these new things, and knowledge in the process, became more and more voracious. From the impact of sports on adolescents in group settings, to using biomarkers to further refine cancer prognosis (yes, medicine I know, bear with), I gained never-before-seen glimpses into a multitude of topics I never would have had the time or intention to explore. I also somehow managed to get dragged into quite the ferocious debate during the Q&A session of my presentation, but that was another section of the conference I enjoyed, and quite frankly a story for another time.

Many thanks to Imperial College London for being the most gracious of hosts, Aryan Kumar for being my long-suffering roommate and everyone I met over those three days for the lovely conversation and ideas we had.

If you enjoyed this read, I’ve been Kyle Cheng from the University of Hong Kong; if you didn’t, I’ve been John Smith and I’m from the University of Rwanda. Cheers!