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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 available support: 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 Sanger ethos of sharing data creates a great environment. The vast amount of data constantly generated, coupled with the money available for research, means that the projects available are exciting and malleable to one's own research interests.
As a student coming in with limited research experience, I found the rotation year particularly useful. While challenging, it allowed me to discover different supervision methods, trial different potential PhD projects and learn a variety of computational and wet lab skills. All the groups I worked in were welcoming and environments 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 decide 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, 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 workplace.
Jannat Ijaz (September 2018)