My name is Dr Samantha Le Sommer and my education & employment journey is a perfect example of how choosing College can lay the foundation for a successful Science career.
I am originally from Helensburgh, but I currently live in Utica in upstate New York, USA where I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Masonic Medical Research Institute, NY.
My research is focused on the autoimmune disease, Lupus, which currently there are no curative treatments for, all we can do is try to control the symptoms. We believe if we find out how and why the disease develops, then we will be able to find new drug targets to provide better treatments in the future.
During the pandemic I have also been involved in aiding the local response by processing PCR COVID-19 tests for the local hospital in our lab facilities.
This varied and exciting career path started at West College Scotland where I studied Applied Sciences – Biology. After a pretty negative relationship with school, I left at 16 with very little to my name and very out of love with learning. I was also fortunate enough to have friends at WCS who spoke highly of the enthusiasm and the excitement that the staff had for teaching. I wanted to be somewhere where people were excited and passionate about what they do.
My Biology lecturer had a PhD in Immunology and I remember her bringing her thesis in to show me. For me, WCS was the start of my career path, and my lecturers helped me create the road map to get to where I wanted to be. No matter where it is you want to go the College will do its upmost to help you get there.
College acted as a stepping-stone between school and university for me. I entered the 1st year of my undergraduate degree with the skills to take lecture notes, work independently, to be able to problem solve and with the critical analysis skills I needed to excel in my course.
By choosing College I learned how to overcome failure. My lecturers helped me pick myself up again after high school and get back on track. Science is a career where most things you do will not work. You are attempting to answer questions and do experiments that haven’t been done before. You won’t get every grant or scholarship you apply for. The most important lesson I learned was if you fail a test or you get a rejection, you get to feel that today then tomorrow you get back up and try again. The people who get back up are the ones that succeed.
Whilst navigating any Science career path, be it research, industry, medical laboratories or teaching, most of you will experience pitfalls and barriers you can’t predict. Find people doing the job you want and talk to them, ask them how they got to where they are and be open about your ambitions. Most of us are a little excited that students show interest in the work we do!
To follow in Samantha's footsteps check out our Science courses here