Why I am going back to University
It's one of the hardest... but exciting decisions I've had to make.
So after years of reflections, I have to come the point where I can comfortably announce that I am going back to university to study a Masters.
Yes, I have decided to take a (not full) step away from my acclaimed pharmacist duties back into traditional education venturing into a new area:
Bioinformatics.
The Integration of Biology and Computer Science.
All at Cardiff University.
The city where I was born and bred.
It is a big change.
A leap of faith.
A step into the unknown.
Decisions like these are not easy. A breadth of factors have contributed to this new chapter of life, all leading towards the aspiration of being a polymath.
And I want to share with you how I came to this decision.
How I came across Bioinformatics
22nd September 2014
Feels surreal to write this piece exactly 10 years on!
The start of my pharmacy Masters at the University of Bath.
From the thrills of Freshers Week, connecting with new friends, getting to grips with the course material, and beginning my destiny to pharmacist.
A job that I was fascinated since I was 15.
I was very science-oriented with a huge love for maths, chemistry, and of course computers.
When I learned that pharmacy involved the exploration of how drugs work, this became the reason for this area over medicine.
The mechanisms of actions, side effects, clinical conditions, etc.
The thirst for this knowledge was unquenchable.
I was excited to learn the pharmacology series that I pursued the final year research project on this.
But with this desire to learn motivating me, something came to mind…
I joined the music society and 90% of the members were computer science and maths students.
I was curious enough to ask them what they learned, and their content of algorithms, equations, and coding amazed me!
Why didn’t college teach me how to code?!
Having studied maths and was adept at computers to the point I was sought after by my family to help them with any issues…
I was jealous!
I missed learning maths at college.
The maths and computer science were nowhere near relevant enough to make it onto the pharmacy curricula.
On the other hand, I still enjoyed some aspects of pharmacy and wanted to keep this on my radar.
So the question became…
What if there is a subject that combines:
PHARMACY + MATHEMATICS + COMPUTER SCIENCE
And then Bioinformatics was discovered.
A mixture of what I have learned with what I love practicing.
After searching countless research papers on the contributions towards clinical health, it became the focus throughout.
It led to this decision because of who I am.
The life’s work I am pursuing.
Bioinformatics and Polymathy
Bioinformatics is a niche domain, and to this day it is relatively young.
It is the future of genome sequencing for successful clinical implications. The biggest of which is cancer.
When I qualified as a pharmacist, I became a cancer services pharmacist, and it was an unprecedented post.
It was not the job role I was initially aiming for.
When I was informed of this alternative offer, everything was on track and progressing towards my goal of diving into bioinformatics.
But I discovered more…
The 3 years of working as a cancer pharmacist have been the opportunity to work on myself. I started writing a vision for the future in different areas, including career, financial, intellectual, health & fitness, and overlooked areas like character and emotional life.
Clarity.
When writing the vision, more reasons for pursuing bioinformatics became highly enticing.
It transformed from one to multiple pursuits with deep and meaningful progress.
From work-related progress to problem-solving-related progress.
I had a calling to not do one single calling.
Bioinformatics was not another passion to pivot because I will enjoy it more than pharmacy, but it was due to what it is.
It is a subject of multiple subjects.
Each one synergises with the others.
With multiple subjects comes the beautiful transferability towards other domains. And one of these is…
Neuroscience.
As I was glancing at my YouTube feed, a series of videos on a niche but captivating topic appeared out of nowhere:
Falling into a (healthy) rabbit hole, I observed how connected this topic was to bioinformatics; they have similar sub-domains forming an interdisciplinary whole.
If you read my Starting With Why article, I described from a personal development point of view being curious about pattern recognition, and how humans are tuned to find connections.
Having this curiosity in mind, it was a matching piece to a project in computational neuroscience, and the start of my side hustle as a creator.
It further upgraded where I want to go with my Life’s Work, and what problems to solve.
This adventure for interdisciplinary play contributed to a clarified big-picture aspiration:
The Polymath.
Individuals like da Vinci, Franklin, and Aristotle selected many domains, and discovered connections between them to create interdisciplinary innovations.
Each domain led to another:
Treating my career as interconnected parts transformed my outlook on how to find purpose in work, not only enjoying the practice but also finding connections towards what energises me.
Work becomes play.
Oh so you’re leaving pharmacy then?
This was a question I received from my peers when I was leaving my job.
I hypothesised that in the first instance of moving from one profession to another, you are leaving the previous profession to concentrate your focus on the other.
New learnings.
New practices.
New environment.
I am certainly moving to a new profession.
But not quite leaving…
(Yet)
I drew inspiration from a fellow YouTube Doctor and Data Scientist, Chris Lovejoy, and a video he elaborates on his own decision of leaving medicine…
And reshapes it (he does speak fast!).
He describes the training pipeline of doctors ranging from foundation years towards the specialties, and points out that trainees follow this path “linearly.”
A similar route occurs with pharmacists particularly in the hospital setting:
4 years of university → Pre-registration stage → Clinical diploma → Prescribing → Leadership/Management…
As you can see this is not only a linear pathway, but also a pre-determined one.
A path that is highly respected and leads to bigger opportunities.
I don’t want to say one path is better than the other, including my own. But it was worth taking a step back, and reflect on how I approach pharmacy, and generally work.
And it goes back to finding intersections with what I have learned and what I love.
Finding alternatives that may be outside the pre-determined pharmacist routes helped me to think creatively on how to see the value of being a pharmacist.
The Feeling of Being Behind
Now with great change…
Comes great change.
Career-wise and general life-wise.
There is no doubt that taking an unconventional and creative route towards your goals involves stepping back, as if you took a ride with the Doctor in the TARDIS on a trip 10 years into the past. But then the TARDIS broke down, and no his sonic screwdriver couldn’t do its magic.
This period was where the opportunities were open and you lived the most youthful of days.
But the name is apt…
It is stepping back.
And with it, a special kind of doubt follows…
The feeling of being behind.
A transient but potentially acute sensation of not achieved the milestones of your age.
I’m 28.
Most of my friends are entering or are in marriage, some have kids.
Most of my friends are in specialist roles, some are leaders or managers.
Their social media looks like they have settled and have no problems with their jobs.
They achieve work-related accolades and are great leaders.
Just imagine you work in a place where your university friend is your line manager!
The feeling is unreal.
It must be a big tradeoff to sacrifice settlements for a step into the unknown.
Mind you…
I have zero experience in bioinformatics.
Despite all the reflections, I may have no idea what I am putting myself into.
I’ve wanted to try this for the last 7 years.
And the time has come.
It is exciting to step into an unknown world. However there is no denying how scary the future will be.
But then…
One of my lead pharmacist colleagues shared a piece of advice:
If you don’t fear doing the masters, it’s not worth doing.
And from that…
I was blown away.
I was immensely grateful for this sentiment.
It made me realise that it is not another gateway towards my goals or even reaching settlement…
But an adventure.
An opportunity to play with curiosity.
Supplemented with Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia soundtracks of course.
Speaking of curiosity, there is a TED talk by journalist David Epstein, where he contrasts between different time periods where you specialise; early specialisers and late specialisers. Deriving stories from famous sportsmen and analysis of contrasting education systems, he found those who specialise early gain an initial advantage in the short-term:
Adeptness and depth in their chosen field.
But long-term wise…
They may not feel satisfied with their jobs.
Disclaimer: Don’t be discouraged by this if you are working in a specialist role. Fully fully support the role of specialists, and generalists/polymaths would not be here if it weren’t for them.
But for the late specialisers…
The opposite applies:
They lag behind acutely, but over time feel more satisfied with their long-term careers.
They explored a breadth of fields, and played with them.
This became one of my favourite TED talks, and the apt title solves the issue smartly:
“How Falling Behind Can Get You Ahead”
If you’ve come this far, thank you for reading.
If you are contemplating a transition, a stepback to pursue your curiosity, or even becoming a polymath outside of societal norms, and you feel the pressure of feeling behind or any risk,
I want to leave you two valuable Quora answers from polymaths who seem incredibly curious but still have no idea what they are doing.
Sometimes it’s from this deprivation of certainty of what you are doing is what makes the adventure.
Even for the most successful leaders or big visionaries, the same feeling applies.
It is worth reminding yourself of this, no matter what age.
To the best of adventures and pursuits!
Mark x
Regardless of whichever direction or field you end up going into, ultimately the silver bullet will be for you to find a way to build and craft your own individualized polymathic path in order to maximize your flexibility, creativity, and freedom to combine and curate your own diverse interests, skills, and areas of knowledge, and leverage all this to somehow try to make a (unique) positive social impact.
Today, I’m a researcher, professor, social scientist, nonprofit consultant and advisor, world traveler, social entrepreneur, poet, explorer, and musician (and, in a past life, also had a lot of fun - once upon a time - being an amateur actor, juggler, cavern tour guide, and magician, at various times). I’ve now taught for nine years at a university, led research expeditions in rain forests, consulted and travelled around the world, helped found eight nonprofit organizations operating across dozens of countries, and also regularly contribute to United Nations sustainable development projects.
To be honest, I still don’t really know where I’m going to end up.
Congratulations, Mark! I'm really happy for you! I can't wait to hear more about Bioinformatics, it sounds very interesting! 28 is still so young so I hope you don't feel the need to compare yourself! Your life, your journey and you seem very excited and that is a beautiful thing!