Intercalation means something different for everyone. Some people see it as a way to boost their career prospects, some see it as a way to explore interest in a field early on, and some see it as a route into academia. I used intercalation as a bit of an escape. I had started to get bored of medicine and wanted to branch out. So I jumped on a train down to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to do an MSc in Medical Entomology for Disease Control. Here’s what I learnt:

Doing a Master’s degree is difficult in a really different way to studying medicine. In medicine there’s a lot of memorization, being “safe”, and learning through repetition. While there was some of that in my Master’s (don’t get me started on creating specimens or pinning mosquitoes), there was a lot more emphasis on thinking things through and developing your own ideas. One of the main projects for a Malaria module was to design, budget, and then explain how you’d evaluate a malaria elimination program in an endemic country (pro tip: dousing all livestock in insecticides, while a fun idea, does not have the strongest evidence backing and is a tough sell). It felt a lot more like you were being given tools to problem-solve rather than being taught specifics (which, on reflection, is much more relevant for real-life medical practice).

Alongside this I found a much stronger sense of camaraderie. My course only had 3 people on it; our “sibling course”, Medical Parasitology, was barely into double digits. As such, we developed really close bonds and would regularly work on things together. This was great because it meant that I could learn all the basic science stuff I didn’t know from my coursemates (like how to set up a microscope for Kohler illumination). Plus, everyone was deeply passionate about the subject, which meant that there was always a really interesting exchange of ideas going on.

Both of these things really inspired me to get deeply involved in my Master’s. I not only threw myself into the course content, but I became a course representative and a student ambassador because I loved what I was doing. For me, the main downside was that it was difficult going back into medicine. I’d loved the Master’s precisely because it was so different, so I started fifth year feeling pretty bummed that it was over, rather than reinvigorated for studying medicine.

Happily, it’s all worked out fine – now that I’ve started working, I wouldn’t leave clinical medicine for anything short of an extravagant salary (with an equally prestigious title). Quite nicely, I find myself using some of what I learnt from intercalating in day-to-day practice (more on the skills side than the admittedly niche knowledge side of things). I’ve got friends from the course that I’m still in contact with, and we’re pretty much all doing really cool work now.

So, if there’s one thing I can say about intercalation it is: do it. It will teach you different ways of thinking and learning, it could spark a new passion, you’ll build networks (and friendships), and you’ll have a snazzy second graduation out of it. I can easily say that intercalation was one of the best things I’ve done.