Biochemistry at Bath (vs York, Exeter, UEA and St Andrews)

[Historygeek05]

DD1 has an offer for Biochemistry at Bath which is probably going to make her firm choice. She also has offers from Exeter, York, UEA and is waiting to hear from St Andrews.

We were lucky enough to get to an open day in 2019 and she liked the feel of the campus and the Biochemistry talk was very inspiring. So all good.

However we have just been looking on the Uni Guide website and the student scores for Biochemistry seem worryingly low. Overall satisfaction is 68%, only 61% thought staff made the subject interesting and only 48% felt part of a community of their course. More positively there is only a 2% drop out rate.

By contrast the figures for York for example are much more impressive. Student satisfaction is 98% with 96% saying staff made the subject interesting and 80% feeling part of a community on the course. Drop out rate of 3%.

So does anyone have any views on how much weight we should place on these figures or does anyone have any recent experience of Biochemistry at Bath (or indeed any of the other unis she has offers from) DD is the sort of student who really needs to feel engaged and thrives in an atmosphere of belonging if that makes sense. She is really keen on doing a placement year which all the courses she has chosen offer with the exception of St Andrews.

I have a DC at Bath but not doing biochem. He's in his placement year. Message me if I can help.

That’s worrying. My dd also has an offer for biochemistry at Bath and probably putting it as her insurance.

My dd looked at Bath and she was impressed with the open day lecturer in 2019. She however was put off because she wasn't over keen on some of the lecturers specialisms (I seem to remember that the lecturer stated that they geared the course to their specialisms which I'm guessing happens at all Universities). She ended up opting for Biomed in the end and is at Warwick.

What does your dd think of Warwick Frazzled6? My dd also has an offer from Warwick and she’s deciding between Bath and Warwick for her insurance.

She loves it... It was a choice between Bham and Warwick for firm but she'd done a lab day at Warwick at the end of year 11 and loved it so it was always a favourite. There are 400 students on the Biosciences courses and they all interlink in the first year (tutor group has a mixture of Biochem/Biomed/Neuroscience students).

Warwick have done well so far with blended learning. She's had weekly f2f tutorials (apart from recent lockdown). They had labs during November. The lectures in the main have been good (she's actually preferred online lectures because she can work at her own pace). Not everything has been perfect, they have struggled with online labs this term and with some of the statistics lectures(understandbly so). They have however been flexible where there have been issues, extending deadlines etc.

She's in a townhouse of 12 and made friends quickly. Accommodation has been generally good although it's expensive. Shes fairly outgoing and there has been enough going on (when they could they have gone into Coventry or Leamington using Ubers).

There appear to be a lot of students from London who attend Warwick.

What sure are you getting these details from OP?

DD's first choice is Bath for biomed rather than biochemistry. We've only visited during covid-times and had a tour of the general campus by a non biosciences student. The University seems the best fit for my DD but we've only managed to visit Loughborough and Warwick, again covid times and we had to explore the campus ourselves. We've not seen inside a university science dept. at all, nor any student accommodation. She's going very much off the course midyle listings from the prospectus and the feel of the campus/area.

I was intrigued by the Biochemistry student satisfaction stats, since Bath overall scores highly. But yes, there they are in black and white.
discoveruni.gov.uk/course-details/10007850/UUUG2-C703~USBB-AKB06/Full-time/

The usual put-down of NSS scores for a course at a 'good' University is that they are driven by the dimmer students expecting their hands to be held every step of the way and not getting that (similarly, high scores for courses at 'lesser' institinstitutions being driven by their universally dim intake wanting their hands held and getting that), but not sure that that is likely at Bath? (From the point that even the 'dimmer' ones are likely to be quite bright, not that the university is likely to go in for excessive hand holding therefore no cause for complaint, I mean).

@Historygeek05, perhaps your DD could have a good dig around on TSR (the Biochemistry subject forum and the Bath University forum)? Unless she has done so already and found no clues?

Thanks for the link. It looks like biomedical sciences scores fine. Perhaps the biochemistry reflects a strange anomaly year.

Thanks to everyone who replied. DD has looked at TSR but can’t find much relevant info. She follows a couple of biochemistry students who are at Bath and they seem to be very positive. As PPs have said it does seem very strange given the high level of satisfaction for Bath in general. I tend to agree it may well be an anomaly - perhaps based on small numbers of student responses. DD still adamant that Bath is where she wants to go. Loves the feel of the city (we don’t live too far away so are reasonably familiar with it) and the course modules really appeal to her.

My guess is the students haven’t had a great covid experience, perhaps poor online teaching etc? Might be better when things get back to normal? Just a guess really

@Majaso12

That’s worrying. My dd also has an offer for biochemistry at Bath and probably putting it as her insurance.

Hi, What is your DD firm choice ? We have just been on first virtual offer holders day which was York, also have Bath and other unis to visit virtually but not until end of month. Not having visited any of the unis in person it is very hard for them to choose.

@frazzled6 It’s good to hear a positive review of Bio Sciences at Warwick Uni, where do you find the majority Y2 onwards students live after halls ?

Mixture, Some choose to live in Canley (10 mins walk from Campus) quite a few choose Leamington, and some choose the surburbs of Coventry (Earsdon).

Much cheaper than Uni accommodation. My dd has been paying 174.00 first year next year is 90.00!

Dd and her friends have chosen Canley because they could not find anything they liked with decent size bedrooms and they have tended to go out to Spoons etc in Coventry (before lockdown) she's also taking her car in Yr2 so needed parking too.

That is quite strange...I went to Bath and loved it, but I did languages and Politics. Dh did a STEM course, but it wasn't biochemistry. He did a lot of chemistry though and did extremely well...like annoyingly well, at it and he has a great career.

I am told that biochemistry is one where employers can be quite snobby about which university their graduates come from, so you might want to feel out how Bath appeals to employers who hire biochem grads.

I know a couple of people who studied at Exeter. One did medicine there. It seemed like a good uni, but there were a few issues with medicine there iirc, as they had just merged with another university to provide the course and there were some teething issues from what I heard. That student is a doctor now though and seems to be doing well.

York has a great reputation but, (and this sounds really frivolous, but it is what put me off going to Lancaster), it gets really cold there in winter! I'm from a cold part of the UK and Bath having nice weather in Summer and not that cold in winter really appealed to me!

Skyr2 Imperial or UCL and is finding it hard to choose. Today she’s said she might choose Imperial as firm and UCL as insurance, but that could be risky. I’m quite worried about her moving to London. Bath is close to us.

Just joining as ds has applied for biochemistry too, he didn't go with Bath in the end (although very nearly) but does have an offer from York. Can I ask how people have found the offer holder days who have done them? I can't convince ds to do one as he reckons it won't tell him anything that the open days didn't and he's a bit online-open-day fatigued but I suspect they may be useful?

DS2 'attended' his offer holder day at York on Wednesday (History of Art, not Biochemistry, though). The first part, in the morning, involved talks / Q&A with people in salaried positions (the grown ups, so to speak), then a session with students in various years / on different courses. I think the next bit was an accommodation / campus talk and tour, but it looked like it was going to be the same as the one from the virtual open day, so he gave that a miss.

The afternoon session was specific to his course, but unfortunately, he decided very early on that he had changed his mind about it (at York, not altogether, thank goodness) and dropped out. It looked like the session was going to be quite interactive, though.

The thing about offer holder days is that they will either be entirely specific to the course (the Birmingham HoA one at the weekend had just an introductory talk about the department, then went straight into a couple of mini-seminars) or at least mainly specific. DS2 has 'been to three now and all had the chat function enabled for at least part of the sessions, so participants could ask questions that way.

Thank you, that's helpful. I just really wish they could go to some of these in person, I think there may be a higher than normal drop out rate this coming year as a large number of students end up in unis they haven't had the chance to ever visit. So many people in past years seemed to say that they changed their mind (one way or the other) after getting a 'feel' for the place on open days and our dc won't have the opportunity to do that.

DD2 did her work experience in the BioMedSci dept at Exeter when she was in year 12. She knew more science than 2nd year undergrads. She didn't consider applying there.

Exeter shut their Chemistry department way back in 2003 or 2004. I would rather have specialists teaching me/my kid

My DD2 did Biochemistry at Bath. She left in 2018.
She loved the uni and Bath and made lots of good friends there.
She didn't socialise much with people on her course and doubts any of the lecturers even knew who she was, so she can see why people would say they didn't feel part of a community on the course.
Her main complaint was the poor academic support, in particular the poor feedback on coursework.
She has since done a taught master's at another uni and the academic support she got there was superb.
She felt like just a number at Bath and has had no contact with any staff from Bath, since she left, not even her tutor. However, she is still in contact with her placement year supervisor and some of her master's lecturers.

@OP Might be worth comparing the numbers of students who participated in the surveys at both universities to give it more context. Overall satisfaction at university A might be 68%, but if only a handful of students completed the survey then the data might not be that meaningful ditto uni B.