Primary tabs
4-year PhD student (2017-21) Jannat Ijaz wrote:
The facilities at the Sanger Institute are unprecedented: from the computational methods that are developed here, to the variety of sequencing platforms available, to the wide range of research aims that are present. The greatest thing about the Sanger is, in my opinion, the support that is available: not only from a group leader but also from Post-Doctoral Fellows and fellow PhD students. Whenever a research problem is faced, there is always someone who has enough time and expertise to sit down and talk through your problems with you. This makes the daunting prospect of completing a PhD a lot easier.
The ethos at Sanger of sharing data creates a great environment. The vast amount of data that is constantly being generated coupled with the money available for research means that the projects that are available are exciting but also malleable to your own research interests.
As a student coming in with limited research experience, I found the rotation year particularly useful. While challenging, it gave me an opportunity to discover different supervision methods, trial different potential PhD projects and learn a variety of computational and wet lab skills. All of the groups that I worked in were welcoming and were environments in which I could see myself working in for the next three and a half years. Most importantly, it allowed me to focus my research interests to make the correct decision about what I wanted to study for the rest of my PhD.
Sanger actively encourages students to have a life outside of research which is made easier since all PhD students are affiliated with Cambridge University and therefore also a Cambridge college. This provides another layer of support from University of Cambridge tutors. Aside from this, it also provides a social group outside the research group so you get to meet a wide range of people from different fields.
If you’re interested in genomics, Sanger is an outstanding place to work.
Jannat Ijaz (September 2018)