Anthony “Tony” Olmert
MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise 2015-2016
The Lenox-Conyngham Scholarship was a fantastic opportunity that was especially valuable for me as:
- a complement to the undergraduate business programme at McIntire
- an opportunity to make lifelong friends from walks of life I would never have encountered otherwise,
- an opportunity to recalibrate my business skills honed during undergraduate studies in the specific direction of medicine.
I found the biggest academic difference between the MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise at Cambridge and McIntire’s business program at UVA was the research dissertation as the final deliverable for the MPhil. This individual application of research and writing was a new and welcome challenge, compared to the team-based work at McIntire. However, many of the same skills – creative problem-solving, open-minded research, and succinct communication – translated well from McIntire. I loved the opportunity to work independently on a project of my choosing as the culmination of the bioscience enterprise program at Cambridge, for which I drew on the skills learned at both UVA and Cambridge.
Living at Trinity with a view of the Great Gate out of my window was a unique experience that I will always remember. Waking up every day and walking to the Great Hall for breakfast was also a unique experience. It seemed every morning I met scholars, across as many disciplines as could be imagined, who were happy to discuss their studies.
During my time at Trinity I met people and made friends that I will treasure forever. The opportunity to interact with people from all areas of study at meals and formal dinners was particularly welcome, because at McIntire it was often easy to insulate ones-self and only mix with people following similar paths. Already since leaving Cambridge, I have met with European friends from Cambridge who have visited the USA, and I am planning to visit some of them in Europe this summer.
The Lenox-Conyngham Scholarship gave me the opportunity and the luxury to take a deep breath, consider what I had been studying, what I might do next, and how they might be combined with my most deeply-held values. Ultimately, I have decided to pursue medicine and am currently studying for the US Medical School Admission Test. I wouldn’t have followed this path without meeting a mentor at Cambridge who showed that it was possible to combine my medical and entrepreneurial interests successfully. The biggest value from the Lenox-Conyngham Scholarship for me is that I continue to draw on the lessons learned and people met during that year and anticipate that will be true for a long time to come
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