Born and brought up in Coventry, just 20 miles from the Principal’s hometown of Leicester, Chimdi is a proud representative of the Midlands.
Chimdi’s Homerton experience was sandwiched in the middle of his time as a medical student at Liverpool University. Knowing that he wanted to explore the possibility of becoming a physician scientist, he wanted to take a year to build his scientific research skills, before returning to his practical training in hospitals.
After three years at Liverpool, he therefore took an ‘intercalation year’, taking a year out to complete an MPhil in Translational Biomedical Research at Cambridge. Homerton, just a short walk from Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Cambridge Biomedical campus, was the obvious choice of College.
Arriving at Homerton in the autumn of 2020 mid-pandemic, Chimdi managed a term of in-person lectures before subsequent lockdowns intervened. However, the structure of the course meant that the second and third terms focused more on small group thesis work, which was able to continue.
“I was very lucky that actually the pattern of the course didn’t change too much in terms of the amount of in-person lectures and solo research we were supposed to have,” he says. “And as Cambridge’s social life revolves more around pubs than clubs, I was able to experience those too!”
The only intercalating medical student on the course, Chimdi studied alongside two qualified doctors and people from a range of scientific backgrounds, before returning to the practicalities of his final two years at Liverpool. As he revisits Cambridge this weekend, to confusingly graduate with an MPhil before he has even completed his undergraduate degree, he is looking forward to reminding himself of those Cambridge pubs, without the lockdown.
