Gautam Patel (Biochemistry, 1999)
Gautam completed a Masters in Biochemistry and now works as a senior policy manager in India for scientific research to inform poverty reduction.
The first night at Hertford I was daunted and tearful after my parents left. I joined the seven-century old Hertford College after studying at a government college in Warrington, which had then just celebrated three years of existence. The Sutton Trust had brought me to Oxford for a summer school the year earlier, which convinced me that hard work can overcome hardship. My first year at Herford was a rush of trying to keep up, fuelled by cornflakes, bottled pasta sauce (with anything), and not much sleep.
I was far from prepared for study at Oxford. In my first-year, I did not take the two-page weekly reading lists seriously; I thought the length was to impress us. My low scores in the first year told me I had been wrong. My first-year failure created my way of learning that developed from the second-year. I became the first to reach the library, and very fast at photocopying (articles were not online in 2000, but bound in weighty volumes). I thoroughly read, I underlined, made one-page notes, mind-maps, and advanced to scheduling weekly peer-group discussions. Making my own knowledge visible to others crystallised my internal understanding. In tutorials where I had earlier share glib textbook statements, I began to interact with the leading professors on how latest research informs new medical treatments in neuropharmacology, genetics and metabolism. My tutor was sharp, always to the point, and seemed to enjoy extending the famed one-hour Oxford tutorials to two-hours, one-to-one, of my mental agony. This gave me a way to learn that out-lasted the chemical stench of the organic chemistry laboratories.
Oxford gave me the foundations of scientific thinking, being systematic in applying concepts and sharp in analysing details. Today, I apply these same principles of precision and logic in my work at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in India. As a senior policy manager, I work closely with state governments across India to disseminate research findings of what has been found effective in reducing poverty, so that policy is informed by scientific evidence. In the same way that medicine has benefited from nearly two centuries of scientific trials, the development sector has two decades of randomised evaluations to measure impact and cost-effectiveness. Where there is commitment, we work with governments and implementation partners to scale-up evidence-based approaches. This includes a programme to build stable livelihoods for ultra-poor women-headed rural households in Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand, and urban community sanitation solutions being tested with municipal governments in Odisha. It is great to see governments recognise the need for quality data, robust analysis and evidence to inform decisions.
Where the Biochemistry building deepened my mental ability to think scientifically, the multiple buildings of Oxford widened my mind. Sunday mornings were for four-hour periods of classic life-drawing at the Ruskin School of Art, as I imagine the Greeks would have enjoyed; other mornings I’d run along the Cherwell with sunrise, afternoons at the Oriental Institute for Hindi lessons, and nights in Hertford’s own dark-room developing black and white photographs. The rigour of studying as hard and long as possible was best relieved with friends, who are lifelong. The happiest location was OB Quad, for the banter, the laugh-out-loud jokes, the earnest debate: we’d talk of the university fees, the Iraq war, world economic injustice; not whether we were empowered or not, but whether we were willing to become so. Oxford gave me excelling minds, and Hertford gave me open hearts. At Hertford: live fully, study like never before, follow your passion, make friends for life, and don’t leave without being ready to know who you’ll become.