Name: Manail Fatima Amjad Ali
Nationality: Pakistan
Current residence: United Arab Emirates
Programme: BSc (Hons) Computing
Institution: University of Suffolk
The following interview has been edited for clarity.
Why do you still study medicine even though you’re pursuing a computing degree now?
I loved biology, learning about the heart, the nervous system, and disease mechanisms. I hoped to contribute towards finding cures for medical conditions that had no cure, partly because some of them affected me directly.
Even though I’m pursuing a computing degree today, the drive that pulled me toward medicine hasn’t changed. Medicine was one route to making a real difference, and computing became another. The core reason I wanted to go into medicine was that I genuinely wanted to make an impact on people’s lives. I wanted to learn more about the human body, then build something that helped others.
Everyone in Manail’s class at GEMS Westminster School expected her to become a doctor. But her journey eventually took her in a different direction. Source: Manail Ali
What does “studying medicine on your own terms” actually look like?
There’s no curriculum, and no exam deadline. In my spare time, I read research papers, learn from medical YouTubers, and read in-depth medical books (that people might say are boring). And no, it’s not for an exam or for a degree. It’s purely because I want to gain knowledge.
My friends in medicine programmes think I’m absolutely unhinged for doing this for fun. But that’s the thing. When the pressure’s off, learning becomes pure again. I believe knowledge isn’t wasted, even when the path shifts. Ironically, I enjoy it more now than I did when it was supposed to be my career.
What actually pulled you toward AI during your gap year?
I read an article about AI systems assisting decision-making in complex environments, augmenting humans rather than replacing them. And the idea that you could build systems that learn patterns and influence healthcare, education, and logistics all at once fascinated me.
It wasn’t the math that pulled me in at first; it was the implications. I realised technology wasn’t just apps or software, but infrastructure, tools capable of affecting thousands or millions of people simultaneously. So that one article led me to spend my free time reading about all of these.
Manail’s parents supported her decision to switch from medicine. In fact, her father was the one who encouraged her to explore technology. Source: Manail Ali
How did your thinking shift from medicine toward tech?
At some point, I noticed I was thinking about problems differently. Instead of asking how I’d treat something as a doctor, I started asking how I’d build something that helps solve it at scale.
I found myself spending more time on AI-related ideas than revisiting my medical pathway, not because I had to, but because I genuinely wanted to. Even so, I never felt like I was abandoning medicine. It felt more like zooming out, moving from working with one patient at a time toward building something that could affect thousands.
Do you think switching from medicine to tech means you gave something up?
Knowledge is never wasted. Biology didn’t disappear from my brain, and neither did the way I think about systems, so I don’t see pivoting as throwing something away. I see it as refining my direction.
Beyond medicine and tech, I’ve worked across business, journalism, project management, web development, and data science, and some people might call that inconsistency.
I’d rather call it building transferable capability instead of following a perfectly linear path, since every role has taught me something that compounds over time.
