2022 Medical Society CCA with GIS Alumni!
The first week of our new school year started with a fantastic talk by two incredible individuals from the Class of 2022. Before heading off to the UK to start their own medicine courses at university, Catherine and Sainavi were keen to share some of their expertise and experience with our new Year 13 Medicine applicants.
Unravelling the challenges of the competitive application process, our new alumni gave honest feedback about what students should be doing to prepare in Year 13, as well as providing reassurance that the support offered at GIS will help bring out the best in them.
Connection and collaboration is such an important facet of success for all of our Year 13 students and the perpetual passing on of knowledge from one year to the next is crucial to ensure continued success. We have one of our largest ever cohorts of medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine applicants this year so we are now utilising the generous help of our expert staff to ensure these students have the best chances of success.
We would like to wish Erin Suriawinata, Catherine and Sainavi all the best for the exciting prospect of their university courses, and we look forward to hearing about their continued adventures on route to becoming tremendous doctors in the future.
Dr Michael Browning
Head of Sixth Form / Assistant Head of KS5
The second week of term continues to be busy with HE and MedSoc.
Samantha Lee, currently heading into her 5th year of her BDS course at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, came in to deliver a presentation to three dentistry aspirants. Her presentation called ‘Dentisty in a Nutshell’ gave insight to the dentistry applicants this year.
Sam shared honestly about the gruelling application process- from UCAT prep to ensuring you get the best exam results and reminders to get support from their subject teachers, advised them on how to prepare for interviews (both one to ones and MMIs) and went through how to write an excellent personal statement. She also shared slides on what dental school entails on a day to day basis.
Tarshaan, Tristan and Thivya found the session extremely useful and were thankful to have alumni members return to GIS to give such personal support for our Medsoc students.
We wish the applicants all the best and we wish Sam all the best in her final year before she embarks her dentistry career with the NHS for a couple of years.
Renie Leng
English Teacher / Higher Education Counsellor
“It was a very heartwarming experience visiting GIS again – walking around the campus I spent 12 years of my life in and catching up with my teachers. I gave a talk to the current year 13 prospective dentistry students, which was very nostalgic as I remembered how I was in that position myself not too long ago. I gave my honest insight into my life at dental school, and gave them tips on their applications, which were met with many thoughtful questions. I hope they found it useful and I wish them the very best in their applications!”
Samantha Lee, Class of ‘18
Bachelor of Dental Surgery at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London
“I would like to express my sincere appreciation for GIS, for inviting me back to speak at MedSoc, which is a society that has helped me greatly during my university application process. It was lovely being back at GIS to see familiar faces after graduating from King’s and going through an unprecedented pandemic. This was my first public speaking experience and having it in my alma mater was definitely daunting. However, this experience was definitely rewarding and has given me things to reflect on. The students were engaged and curious throughout the talk, and were surprised at my honest experiences of university. They looked slightly uneasy at the prospect of managing an unimaginable university workload, but excited at starting afresh at university. Looking back at my time in GIS, I would have loved if more seniors gave their own un-sugarcoated experiences of university to help prepare us better and give us insight on the big transition of “adulting”. If this is something that can be organised, I’m sure that the current A-level students would appreciate this. Dr. Browning helped immensely and gave me several helpful prompts during my speech, to give the students an idea of what future avenues they could explore with a Biomedical Sciences degree. I’m immensely grateful that I was given this opportunity and would certainly be visiting GIS again in the near future.”
Erin Suriawinata, Class of ‘19
BSc in Biomedical Sciences from King’s College London
Currently pursuing MScin Biomedical and Molecular Sciences Research at King’s College London
“It was great to be able to talk to the Medsoc members and hopefully I was helpful to them, just as how the previous GIS alumni were helpful to me when I was applying to medical school. I wish them all the best with the rest of the application process.”
Catherine Tan, Class of 2022
Reading Medicine at the Newcastle University, UK
“I had a lovely time meeting all the prospective medics from GIS! Having experienced how frustrating the medicine application process can be, I hope that I was able to provide some assurance and useful advice to the year 13 students for their own journeys. Everyone was so enthusiastic, and it was great to hear about their individual experiences with the application process so far – I wish them all the best for the year ahead!”
Sainavi Mahajan, Class of 2022
Reading Medicine at the University of Leicester, UK
A huge ‘Thank You’ to these inspiring alumni who met, mentored and coached our students despite their busy daily schedules. If you are interested in sharing your journey post GIS, and offering pearls of wisdom to our current students at future events, then please get in touch with us at alumni@gardenschool.edu.my.
We are always updating our page with news from the Alumni community across the continents, and would love to hear from you and share your stories. Please get in touch via Facebook, LinkedIn or simply send an email to alumni@gardenschool.edu.my. We can’t wait to hear from you!