Alumni story
Interview with Lucia Garcia Lecuona, Class of 2016
How long were you at ACS for?
I was at ACS Egham for two years. I did the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma there between August 2014 and May 2016.
Did you enjoy your time there?
It was really good, although it was quite a big change. I had just moved from Mexico to the UK, so the darkness and cold were a bit unwelcome. I still enjoyed my time at ACS Egham though. It's quite a small school - my graduating class was only about 45 people. It meant that I knew my classmates very well. It also meant that the size of the classes, especially for DP, are nice and small. So you actually get to interact with the teachers more. I think in that sense, it really prepared me for university. I still remember fondly my history teacher, Miss Rogers. She was the best teacher I've ever had! She was incredible, and the way she conducted lessons was very much like being in a seminar at university.
What university did you go to and what subjects did you study?
I did a Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences at Bath University. Actually, a lot of people from ACS Egham ended up going to Bath University. It's a really nice university with lots of international students. It was quite nice having that kind of community again at university. I then followed my Bacherlors degree with a Masters in Cancer Biology at Imperial College London. Again, the university was very multinational. Both Bath and Imperial College kind of continued my international experiences.
Do you feel that your two years at ACS helped prepare you for university?
I think the IB, in my opinion, prepares you much better for university than A-levels do. You study lots of different, and broader, subjects. I think it makes you a better rounded individual. The content that you study at IB level is also more advanced than A-levels in my experience. I could enjoy my first year at university a little more because I already knew a lot of the topics that were being covered.
That's really interesting. Did you feel better prepared than some of your peers who hadn't done the IB?
Yes, definitely. I think, especially when it came to writing essays, a lot of people had only studied subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Maths, and hadn't done any writing. I did Spanish and English, so it meant that I had quite a lot of experience writing essays. I also did IB History and it taught me to argue my points and ideas. If you only do STEM subjects, you don't get that broader education and perspective.
At university, I also had to do a lot of presentations. With their many public speaking workshops, ACS Egham really prepared me for that aspect. I think a lot of the A-level students struggled a little bit more. Not a lot of STEM people love the presenting side of things.
Can you tell us a little bit about your current job role and the organisation you work for?
I work at AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company. I'm in the Research and Development graduate programme. It's a two-year long programme with three eight-month rotations. I'm in my final rotation now. I've kind of done a bit of everything as I wasn't 100 per cent sure what I wanted to do with my career. So this has been a really good way to figure out where I want to go. I've always known that I want to be in pharma or biotech - I want to make a positive impact.
At AstraZeneca, I've been involved in early research for Oncology, and then more translational work for cell therapies. Now I'm working in a team where we look at assets within the company, to see if we can use them for different disease areas. We want to get the most out of our medicines so we can bring the most to our patients. It's really exciting. We use AI and machine learning and are at the forefront of research.
Was there anything ACS did to prepare you for the world of work, your new life with AstraZeneca?
School prepared me for the multinational community. My work environment at AstraZeneca reflects this. You get people and scientists from all over the world - so many cultures are represented here.
What about your aspirations? Your future career plans?
I quite enjoy project management and the strategy side of things. I like interacting with many different business areas. My long term aspiration is to stay within the pharmaceutical industry. My short term aspiration is to start a PhD, get more experience in leading and directing a project. Ideally, I'd like to do a PhD within the pharmaceutical industry so that it's funded by the industry but remains in a university environment. I want something that combines wetlab with AI and machine learning. Currently most scientists are either data driven or wetlab driven. I would like to fill in that gap and gain an understanding of both sides. I'd like to work on relevant research systems that encompasses what will happen in the human body, especially within Oncology.
Have you been up to anything else since graduation?
I took a gap year and coached football and volleyball. At university, I did a year in the industry with GSK. Since joining AstraZeneca, I have became quite passionate about the democratisation of access to mental health facilities, especially for people my age and younger. At the moment, I'm doing a wellbeing apprenticeship with a focus on mental health - one of the hardest transitions you can make is between university and the workplace. You can develop impostor syndrome - a fear of failures. I'm quite passionate about promoting mental health, inclusion and diversity within the workplace.
