Meet OmniSci Writer and Committee Member
Rachel Ko  

What are you studying?

 

I am currently studying a Doctor of Medicine and I’m in my first year. Before that, I was studying a Bachelor of Biomed.

 

What first got you interested in science? 

 

Exposure through education, stuff I’d studied in school. It sparked interests outside of school and I realised it was something that I wanted to pursue as a career.

 

Something that really reinforced my love for science was doing a major in human structure and function, so anatomy. I really enjoyed that I could weave it in with my other passions in things like art and drawing and painting. I was able to look at science in a way that was really the artsy side of science. It's something I’ve tried to pursue with OmniSci as well. 

 

Do you have any advice for younger students?

 

Don’t be afraid of trying all areas of science. Because I loved a specific area of science so much, I wanted to make sure that was what reeled me in as compared to other things. I tried a bunch of research projects, some of them I didn’t really love and I had to stick it out to the end, but then I could tick that off my list as having done that, and never have to do it again. 

 

But then I did another project which was 3D modelling a bone. It was just me sitting there for hours with a pen, drawing the bone in 3D space, which was very much up my alley. Don’t be afraid of trying everything, even if it feels like a waste of time in the moment. It isn't, it’s the process of filtering out and finding out what you love. 

 

And I’m still in that process. I have no idea what kind of medicine I want to go into, but I’m going by process of elimination and finding where I fit in the realm of science in that way.

 

How did you get involved with OmniSci?

 

Like I said, I like the artsy side of science. I actually sought out a few non-science related magazines at uni. I’ve always been into journalism and I love writing as well, so it made sense for me to look into that in my undergrad years. 

 

OmniSci emerged during those undergrad years and I thought, “Perfect!” I was a columnist first and I started doing some illustrations as well. Then I dropped my role at Farrago completely just to concentrate on this because I found it was a really nice intersection of what I love to do. 

 

My column was about vestigial features, like useless body parts, which I thought would be a fun, light column–I just wanted something cute and fun. So I started that, and now… I’m in the committee.

 

What is your role at OmniSci? 

 

I am an Editor-in-Chief at the moment, and I have also written one of the pieces for Issue 4, purely because of my love for writing and contributing. I might step in as an illustrator at some point… I’m hoping in this break I can sit down and draw a little more than I used to. 

 

As Editors-in-Chief, we work with the committee to coordinate the things being published and try to envision what role OmniSci plays within the science communication universe. And whilst figuring out what we’re publishing and putting out to the world, we’re also trying to include the rest of the student community. We also have social events so that we can share our love for…whether it’s science or art or writing… any of the parts that OmniSci encompasses. We're there to keep everything chugging along!. 

 

What is your favourite thing about contributing at OmniSci so far? 

 

The people that you meet along the way. I do eventually want to pursue science communication myself, alongside medicine. I don’t know what that will look like, but I know that the people who will be involved in that space are the people you meet at the moment. 

 

Even with the committee, chatting about things and discussing interests has been super enlightening. When you expand that to the rest of the OmniSci community, I think it’s super super rewarding. 

 

Also seeing something tangible come out of it all… I just love seeing the magazine come together. When we printed it—though not ideal for the environment for every issue—to have the paper magazine in our hands from last year was super rewarding to see. 

 

Can you give us a sneak peak of what you're working on this issue?

 

Well as Editor-in-Chief, the whole issue is kind of our collective baby! 

 

Personally I interviewed Dr Karen Freilich, a GP specialising in sexual health and working in education as well. I was lucky enough to have her as one of my sexual health elective tutors. She also started a podcast when she was in medical school called Humerus Hacks. 

 

It is basically super famous within the med student community. It sounds like such a simple thing, but just to hear her and the friend she started the podcast with talk things through and make things entertaining… it was such a fresh way of getting the information out. 

 

It’s kind of what we do at OmniSci: make science more accessible to people who might feel intimidated by those bigger, wider topics that they might never have ventured into. And the whole point of a magazine is to get information out to more people, and to spark interest, and show people that these things exist. 

 

As a med student, I kind of came across it as naturally as you could have. And as she was my tutor, I thought it was such an important opportunity to talk to her about why she did it and where she sees science communication going. 

 

What do you like doing in your spare time (when you're not contributing at OmniSci)?

 

Well, there’s the anatomical art. I haven’t had a lot of time to do that… and I’ve been really wanting to try and incorporate it into my study but I spend a lot of time on one painting so it wouldn’t have been time efficient. But my plan for this break is to go to a bar, get myself a drink and just paint on my own… relax in that way. 

 

Otherwise, I play the violin, something I like to destress. It’s actually been a surprisingly big part of my life in med because there's a medical student orchestra. The rehearsals are quite long but it’s actually quite worth it to be sitting there not thinking about medicine. 

 

And yeah, just catching up with friends, going cafe hopping, bar hopping, that’s what I like to spend time doing. 

 

Which chemical element would you name your firstborn child (or pet) after?

 

Let me pull up a visual aid. I actually don’t mind chemistry, but after year twelve I’ve kind of put a line between myself and it. Have you seen that trend online where people are pulling up words that would be really pretty baby names if they didn’t mean what they meant? 

 

Ooh, I’m going to go with Livermorium, Liv for short. Element 160. There’s some good ones—you could go Rutherfordium, Ruth for short.