Pupil Spotlight - Millie

Published by St Nicholas' School on Tuesday 10th of October 2023

Last year, our current Head Girl, Millie gained an impressive scholarship through ‘Immerse Education’ to attend an academically acclaimed medical summer school programme at Oxford University.

Millie spent two weeks of her summer holidays on this residential scholarship programme where she stayed on campus, giving her a taste of what University life is all about.

Lessons were different from St Nicholas’ in a way that students would sit around a large table and discuss concepts, topics and ideas. Millie had the opportunity to learn four main topics from GCSE to A Level which included Anatomy (apart from brain), Cancer, Research Therapies (like stem cell therapy and CRISPR), and Medical Statistics (Millie said she was glad she sat her GCSE Statistics this summer as it put her in good stead when her professor, Mr Shamir Montazid was talking about this – in comparison to her other classmates)!

Millie loved the cardiovascular system when her professor was talking about it so, she took the opportunity to focus on open-heart surgery. Her favourite parts were learning how to sew stitches (which they practiced on a silicon slate) and also taking people’s blood pressure.

At the end of the two-week programme, the students attended a graduation ceremony, where everyone received a certificate. Millie won the overall prize for the top achieving student, it was called the ‘Excellence Award" and it was given to Millie because she had an excellent attitude to learning, always consistently working hard, being conscientious and making the most of the opportunity (oh and always being friendly and sociable to every student). Well done Millie!

The professor Millie worked closely with (and was her tutor) was Mr Shamir Montazid, who is currently working on his Ph.D. ‘How animals such as mole rats have a gene that stops them from getting cancer’. Mr Montazid is hopeful of finding a solution on how to create a genetically modified gene that can be passed on to humans so that it will eradicate cancer in the future. Wow, what an opportunity!

Congratulations Millie, what an exciting couple of weeks you had, we are so proud of you!