Matěj Hlaváč

I’d like to dedicate the last blog to a brief outline of the COVID-19 vaccine development progress. While there are countless parties attempting (such as the overambitious project proposed by Czech ministry of health, immediately denounced by a majority of scientific community), there are a few research teams that are already relatively close. I may be slightly biased, since we fall under the same Future Vaccine and Manufacturing Hub, but I believe that the first viable vaccine will come from Oxford’s Jenner Institute.

With the 3rd and final year of my UCL degree slowly coming to an end, the second semester has so far been centred around master's applications. I will try to cover this in some detail and share my experience so far, as I suppose this topic might be of interest for people currently going through the process or considering to do so in the upcoming years. For those who don’t relish a good personal story, you can skip right to the last paragraph, which summarises my insight and advice.

The third and final year of my studies at UCL has been centred around bachelor the-sis. The topic is usually assigned by our home department during the summer holi-days, but in exceptional cases, teaching office allows students to choose their super-visor and, after consultation, to also propose their own research project. This option is associated with a lot of paperwork and the proposal must be submitted by the end of June. However, I did not want to leave the choice of the topic in the hands of fate and the teaching office and decided to take my chances with my own project.