Shaheim Ogbomo-Harmitt is a scholar at one of London’s most prestigious universities. You might have seen him going viral on LinkedIn last year with his post about his educational experience as a black dyslexic Caribbean student, from his beginnings in a non-selective state school to taking on university-level study and graduating with a first-class degree.
Last year, Shaheim began doctoral study in the application of machine learning and hopes that his research can really make a difference when it comes to improving people’s lives. He chatted to Succeed With Dyslexia last month about all things dyslexia, PhD-level study and what really matters when you’re in education.
SWD: Great to meet you! Would you like to introduce yourself, and talk us through a little about your background and what you’ve been up to recently?
Shaheim: Hey! My name is Shaheim Ogbomo-Harmitt and I’m currently a Masters student on a doctoral training programme [a PhD with an integrated Masters-level qualification at the beginning] studying at King’s College, London, and my field is, I’d say, artificial intelligence within medical engineering. I grew up in South London, and I’m still living in London. I went to a state school all my life and I was diagnosed with dyslexia from a young age- probably about eight years old, I think.
SWD: How have you been finding it at KCL? And why was it KCL that you finally settled on – what made it feel like the right one for you?
Shaheim: It’s funny, because when I was doing my GCSEs I didn’t get the best results, so I wasn’t really looking to go to a top institute - but when it came to my AS-Levels and I got my grades back, I got 2 A’s and 2 B’s, and I was like – oh wow, I can actually apply to these unis. I started going to open days and kept feeling like places weren’t for me or I couldn’t fit in there- I wouldn’t say it was because I was black, but I felt like couldn’t relate to a lot of people there, but then I came to the KCL open day and it just felt right. My mum also went to King’s for midwifery, and I remember when I was little going to the library when she did her essays. Since then I just kind of felt at home here – there are all kinds of people here and my supervisors and academic staff have all been so supportive; definitely helped me get where I am today.
SWD: So – what’s it like going viral on a platform as big and as wide-reaching as LinkedIn?
Shahiem: [Laughing] I haven’t really thought about it! But I think when I did it I was just– everybody does a graduation post, right?- chilling with my mates, and I saw about 400 notifications, and it just kept going up and up! It was a nice feeling, but at the same time it’s not real life, and nobody’s going to stop me in the street. The biggest thing for me is that I’ve sometimes struggled in education, and for people to acknowledge and respect that, it means so much. I want to pay it forward – I’m collaborating with a lot of organisations and trying to use it to help other people, but obviously a lot is on hold because of Covid at the moment.
SWD: Has dyslexia had a big impact on your educational career, would you say? What kind of support mechanisms have helped you when it comes down to the studying side?
Shaheim: Yes and no, really – I did have a little help at primary school, but it wasn’t consistent – although it increased my confidence, the lady who was doing it was just a pastoral worker, not a specialist or anything. When I went to high school, they tried to say that I hadn’t got dyslexia and my Mum had to go in and tell them that we had a diagnosis! There just wasn’t enough help. KCL did fund a post-16 for me [a post-16 dyslexia assessment needed to get dyslexia support at UK universities; discontinued in 2018] which meant that I could get extra time in exams, but I feel like at university you have to often find your own ways to cope too.
As for things that helped me – I think it’s a case of working out what specifically helps you. In lectures there are often three things going on – you have to listen to the lecturer, make notes, and keep your eye on their presentation on the board. I found it hard to do all three; I was shocked that people were generally able to do all three – so I just put my pen down and listened, and I took more in that way. I was always able to go through the slides at home, and even though it might have taken me longer, I actually feel like I got a better understanding than most people that way because I was listening to what the lecturer was saying and checking it against the slides later on instead of splitting my attention across the three.
SWD: Here comes the question every doctoral student probably wants to avoid - how’s your research going?
Shaheim: I’ve pretty much been researching every year I’ve been at uni, and a lot of that has been within machine learning and brains. Recently I’ve been looking at artificial intelligence and heart surgery, and how technology can help surgeons looking at patients with cardiac arrythmia, so it’s quite interesting. I’ve been trying to create an algorithm so that we can speed up the process of getting imaging of the body during surgery. I can’t lie, it is difficult and you do get impostor syndrome – you’re thrown in there with all these people who’ve worked for years in field and you’ve got to keep up with them, and you do feel that pressure – but I’m the kind of person who loves challenges. I don’t like doing things that people have done before, I like doing novel things and getting that kind of stuff to work is the greatest feeling in the world.
SWD: And where do you want it to go? What’s on the horizon for you – is it research future for you, or do you want to take what you’ve learned out into the world?
Shaheim: I’ve got two answers to this! There’s my ideal research role, becoming a principal investigator and getting to do my own science – but my dream job is to work for the NHS. I want to be a clinical scientist in medical computing, and then try to work up to consultancy and being a senior member on one of those teams. I’d love that job – I did work experience in it when I was in Year 12. The thing about academia is that you don’t see the effects of your research straight away, maybe not even in your lifetime – you’d be lucky to see it in your lifetime, really. But working in a hospital you’ll see the impact of your work every day, for each patient, and I think for me I’d get more fulfilment from helping people directly and seeing those real-world applications.
You can find out more about what options are available to you as a university student with dyslexia at The Complete University Guide, as well as at Dyslexia Foundation. You can also find out more about Shaheim, his story and his journey with dyslexia in Succeed With Dyslexia’s webinar “Resilience Helped me to Achieve Academic Success With Dyslexia”. Presented by Shaheim and SWD’s UK Head of Education Julia Clouter on SWD's YouTube Channel.