As you may know, I have been awarded a scholarship from the Royal Thai Government to study neuroscience and cognitive sciences or related fields. Before I came to Imperial, I got acceptance letters form many UK universities to do PhD in neurosciences directly. However, I was thinking that it was my big change in academic life from BSc in Pharmacy to PhD in neuroscience that means I was not confident to do a PhD. Finally, I decided to study MSc Integrative Neuroscience at Imperial College School of Medicine for the following reasons:
1. MSc will give me a solid background in neuroscience before doing a PhD research.
2. Imperial College is very famous in terms of biomedicine (4th), science (6th) and technology (9th) according to world university ranking (ranked 9th overall for this year) which mean I can use this opportunity to make my PhD application outstanding, strong and well-recognized.
3. London is the fantastic capital city that I never thought to be here because I am from countryside family based at Esarn region.
Currently, I have already applied for PhD positions at UK universites only with no reasons why don’t I continue my study in the states. Last month I visit and was interviewed by staff members of Department of Physiology, Neuroscience and Development at University of Cambridge and I got this place finally. Nevertheless, the problem is if I chose this place I have to do a research involving neurobiology of peripheral nervous system focusing on neural placodes and neural crest cells development which are not my first objectives to study abord.
Since I promised to Chula teachers that I would do stem cell research in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other diseases, I also have applied for stem cell reseach for Multiple Sclerosis at Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair where active research is being done by world-leading scientists. The result will be announced in early March. Eventhough my potential supervisor told me that I would be qualified for this , I am currently nervous and very anxious about my furture life.
As well, applying another place is reasonable to secure my PhD place. I am going to visit and discuss possibilities to study with Dr Stephen Minger at King’s College London. He is a stem cell scientist who created the first embryonic stem cell line in the UK and he also submitted a breakthrough research proposal to create a mixed stem cell line from cow and human. Hopefully, I will get lots of experience meeting him and his lab members and I will do all my best again.
To sum up, my PhD positions can be rated as my preference as follows:
1. Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair, University of Cambridge
2. Department of Physiology, Neuroscience and Development, University of Cambridge
3. King’s College London
4. University College London (perhaps)
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