Ameena Malak | DESC Alumni

It only feels like yesterday that I was frantically cramming for one of my final A Level exams outside the DESC Auditorium. How time has flown! To tell you how I got here, I should start at the beginning.

My seven years at DESC were full of incredible teaching, endless opportunities to grow and develop, and an extensive list of amazing memories, ranging from performances onstage to reviving the College’s Eco Club with all kinds of new ideas and sustainability initiatives. Not to mention exams, tutor time and the usual things you’d expect to go through whilst at secondary school!

I faced my fair share of challenges, as all students do. I went through many dilemmas – what to study at GCSE and A Level being the big one, but genuine support and guidance from teachers and peers got me through. Managing A Levels with university applications, Deputy Head Girl responsibilities and other ECA commitments in Year 13 was also challenging, but I learnt many skills, from multitasking to working under pressure, which prepared me well for university.

The support did not stop there. A conversation with Mr Hall in a GCSE History lesson, where he encouraged me to apply to the University of Oxford, ended up in countless hours of interview preparation with the Science and Sixth Form departments. I can still vividly remember opening my acceptance letter in the Sixth Form office, heart racing as everyone peered over, and seeing the word ‘congratulations’.

Oxford was not at all what I initially expected. I was thrown into a rigorous degree from day one and sat in lectures with some of the brightest minds of the world, literally a ‘small fish in a big pond’. My schedule was intense as I juggled daily lectures, labs and tutorials during the day and spent most nights in libraries until the late hours with my new best friend, coffee. Around Oxford I joined many societies – the Bhangra dance team was my favourite – and connected with amazing and inspirational people, including Malala Yousafzai.

I co-founded a virtual reality social impact project (Project Dastaan) centred around the 1947 India- Pakistan Partition, and I joined a campaign to incorporate this history into the UK education system, which I am still working on today.

Job hunting during the pandemic was certainly not easy, but after more than fifty applications and countless virtual assessments and interviews, I secured a place with Johnson Matthey UK on their Commercial Graduate Programme. Working on the commercial side of a global science and sustainable products company was exactly the balance I was looking for in my career and so I am very excited to get started in September.

My seven years at DESC were full of incredible teaching, endless opportunities to grow and develop, and an extensive list of amazing memories.

If there was one piece of advice I could give to the Year 13s leaving for university, it would very much be to embrace and enjoy the forthcoming changes. Capture all opportunities that come your way, no matter how out of the box they are, and network with as many people as you can. But more importantly, learn to cook something more than just pasta – trust me, you’ll get bored of it!