Celebrating Success: Tatiana Foggitt

We continue our celebrating success series with Tatiana Foggitt (MChem Chemistry, 2018) who won a University Prize for her performance in the Part II Examination in Chemistry. Congratulations!

We asked Tatiana to share her experience studying Chemistry at Oxford & Pembroke, and her advice for future applicants:

"I joined Pembroke in 2018 and had a great four years there. There is such a lovely community feel to the college, especially when you live on the main site, and there are always activities and events to join in with. It is also a great college for studying Chemistry because the tutors that you have weekly tutorials with are the same people that are being name-dropped in the department's lectures, something that I never got used to! They are also supportive and I was able to reach out when I was finding the work challenging. Chemists at Pembroke are also lucky because there is a subject dinner every term which is always good fun and creates a support network between the years.

The Chemistry course at Oxford is very broad which not only means you get an extremely in-depth understanding of your subject, but also that you can choose to do a huge range of projects in your fourth year. This was my favourite year because you have the opportunity to work in a research group and carry out a project that is completely novel. My group focused on sustainable plastics and my project looked at making a biodegradable plastic (and should hopefully be published at some point!).

Outside of my degree I was in one of the University hockey teams and played both tennis and netball with Pembroke. I was also involved in volunteering with the chemistry department. 

My advice to anyone applying for Chemistry would be that it is very challenging at times, both in terms of contact hours and content, but if you love the subject then it is definitely worth the work!"