Santiago Rayment Gomez

The end of my MSc was bitter-sweet. It’s a shame it had to come to an end but at the same time I’m excited by the thought of applying my newly acquired skills in the real world! Like many others around the world, I began a new life chapter during the uncertain times brought upon by the Covid-19 pandemic. Thankfully though, I was fortunate to be able to complete my first semester remotely, from the comfort and safety of my home in Caernarfon near the ever-beautiful Snowdonia national park. Making the shift to remote learning was tough but I felt that my course directors and especially the professors made every effort to make online learning as engaging, interactive and fun (learning, fun? Who would have guessed) as possible. Not only that, students themselves were super eager to “meet” and get to know peers, even in a virtual environment. In fact, this was how I met my flatmates-to-be when lockdown eventually lifted, allowing us to move to London.

By the end of the taught component of the course, I felt saturated with new knowledge and understanding and felt equipped to tackle my summer research project (which I ended up doing in the Amazon jungle of Colombia!). Public health and epidemiology require an understanding from a breadth of topics, and LSHTM were able to provide me with this by offering a diverse set of modules. From learning how to design and implement a disease control programme, through learning how to analyse data and develop statistical models in software programmes, to practicing how to respond to a simulated disease outbreak scenario, the range of skills I obtained from this MSc were diverse and invaluable.

My current career plans are to secure a position as a research assistant where I hope to further develop my capabilities analysing data from the field and using it to inform policy making and disease control programmes.

I would like to extend my greatest thanks to the James Pantyfedwen Foundation for providing me with the financial assistance I needed to secure a studentship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Diolch yn fawr.