Biomedical science / neuroscience -did your DD/DS do it?

[Blueberry26]

Hi everyone wondering if anyone out here has children who did biomed science or neuroscience (some we've noticed you specialise in neuroscience at the end), where did they go, how did they find the course and what are they doing now?! Thinking in particular of Manchester/ Bristol/ Newcastle/ Leeds /Sussex - basically courses in larger cities outside London! Thanks for any insight

Just to pin myself here, as my DD's one choice is Neuroscience at Exeter, she received the offer but I was wondering the same thing so following

DD graduated this year with a biomed degree from Newcastle. She loves Newcastle and walked in to a job in a pharmacy as soon as she could find somewhere to live after gradudating. The job is a gap year job while she applies for a post grad degree, but her work experience will help massively as she wants a career in healthcare.

I'll be honest and say that the neuroscience module was her least favourite.

The biomed cohort is quite large - about 300 which made is easy to find freiends. The Manchester biomed cohort is even larger. I believe the intake is 400 students.

Newcastle is the most compact of the cities you have listed, which suits DD down to the ground. Her halls were the nearest to the medical school so she could just roll out of bed and into lectures within minutes. Public transport is great and there is easy access to the coast. Newcastle is also one of the cheaper cities to be a student in and a great city.

The university hasn't had the accommodation problems that other universities have had, and they guarantee accommodation for all first years. From year 2 onwards most students live in Jesmond which has a nice vibe.

Rampantivy that's so useful thank you! May I ask how your DD found the course? Was it hugely difficult/ was there good support?

She found it hard, but she never thinks she is as clever as she really is. She lacks confidence in her capabilities. She achieved AAA at A level (including chemistry and biology) and graduated with a good first but she had to work very hard for it. The course is pretty full on.

The lecturers are pretty hands off. It isn't like being at school, and they have a different lecturer for every topic so there is no opportunity to build up a rapport with any of the lecturers or tutors, with the exception of their dissertation tutor. DD was lucky that her dissertation tutor was quite hands on and she had weekly meetings with him (online). Her first personal tutor was rubbish, so she swapped because it is the personal tutor who gives references. She only spoke to her second personal tutor once.

There is no spoon feeding at university and the students don't get chased or reminded for work. A deadline is a deadline and if you hand in work late you get marks deducted unless you have been granted an extension. This isn't a Newcastle thing, it happens at all universities.

30% of their overall marks in the second year goes towards their final degree classification, and in their third year their dissertation accounts for 54% of their third year marks. They then have to do a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation about their dissertation and then sit final exams. DD sat 4 exams for her finals.

Thanks so much for all the detail, really helpful. Would love any other insight particularly what you DD/DS might have gone on to do! Thanks all

Following for interest as DD also potentially interested in Biomed or Bioscience. Ideally a campus uni in the southern half of UK. She’s only Y12 at the moment so not too sure of predicted grades (but unlikely to be straight A’s). She’s also only taking Biology (not Chemistry) but Psychology should count as 2nd science.

Biomedical scientist here. When looking at degrees if they want to go into biomedical science itself you also need a health care portfolio as well as a degree. Some courses include a year long placement which includes this, you can go straight into a job with it. Without you have to fight for a training position which includes these modules. These positions will have hundreds of applicants post degree trying to find their feet.

She’s also only taking Biology (not Chemistry) but Psychology should count as 2nd science.

Not taking chemistry will be a disadvantage as there is a lot of chemistry in the biomed course. DD said that she felt sorry for those who didn't take chemistry because a certain amount of prior knowledge will be assumed by the university. It is doable of course but your DD will find that she will have to work much harder in the first year to catch up.

Just for info on career prospects afterwards - I know someone who completed a degree in biomedical science. They completed an MSc straight after their degree and now work for a large pharmaceutical company. They've had the opportunity to live in several different countries and have great career prospects.

@Blueberry26 DD2 did biomed at a less highly-regarded university than those your DC is looking at (she went to a Secondary Modern which didn't at the time have much experience with students taking 'hard' science A levels).

She enjoyed it, but didn't find it particularly difficult. Went on to do a Masters in infectious diseases at LSHTM, which was exponentially harder but also absolutely fascinating with evening/weekend talks from the likes of Chris Whitty, Anthony Fauci and Sarah Gilbert. She did easily 50-70 hours a week of study for 12 months, but thrived on the whole experience of a really challenging degree. She then spent a year at an international pharmaceutical company, which makes PCR test kits (not for Covid!).

She's now having a break to do some travelling before applying for PhDs.

@Bayleaf25 I have to echo what @RampantIvy says – a biomed degree without chemistry A level will be quite tough, I think. Despite its name it's more chemistry than biology. She will probably need to do some chemistry catching up. As long as she's aware of that, she should be fine.

Thanks everyone! DD doing chem and bio and maths so should be ok, we noticed some unis require two "hard sciences" of bio plus chem/maths/physics others just bio plus another science for which PE/geography/psych count- or some combo of sorts. DD kicked herself as she did three counting as "hard science" and would have preferred to do one of those three. I don't think she was v well advised!
also Bayleaf most of the talks we've listened to they say if you have done chem you will find the first year a little easier as they have to get everyone up to same standard and some will have done say bio and psych for their science requirements and need to be taught the chem, so suspect it would be difficult but she won't be the only one in that situation
thanks for the information Mortimermay and thing47!

Thanks all. We did speak to a couple of Bioscience students at Southampton Uni open day. Neither of them had done chemistry A level and said that the chemistry modules weren’t too difficult in terms of catching up (appreciate that Bioscience might be slightly different to Biomed though).

Totally off topic , but 👋 @RampantIvy, I think we first bumped into each other on MN in a discussion about primary school shoes for narrow feet! How brilliant to see that your dd has now graduated from my university, in a field that DS is considering.

Sorry for detail

As you were

Happy new year

Thank you @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads. DD is hoping to stay in Newcastle for her masters as well. Neither DD nor her coursemates found the degree easy @thing47. It is very much up to the student to get on with it as there is no spoon feeding or hand holding at Newcastle.

It might be a harder course at Newcastle @RampantIvy. I don't know how much biomed varies but my DD went to a generally less well-thought of university and it was quite vocationally-oriented.

I didn't actually use the word 'easy' incidentally, but about 3 weeks into her Masters DD said she could not continue to work part-time nor represent the university at sport (with all the training and travel that requires) as she needed to spend all her spare time studying.

Some people think a Masters is just another year of the same stuff, and maybe sometimes it is, I am just pointing out that wasn't the experience here.

I’m a Biomedical Scientist.
I would recommend a healthcare science degree or a course with a placement year in a lab while working on the registration portfolio, if looking to become a HCPC registered BMS. I had to do the registration portfolio after university and it is quite difficult to get the support for it.
Also, to become a HCPC registered BMS the undergraduate course needs to be accredited by the IBMS (institute of biomedical science)!!
But there are lots of other really interesting career paths which can be overwhelming if you haven’t decided which path to take. Think about them now and apply for relevant summer placements.

I graduated with a first and I would say the key to getting high grades at university for this course is:
-Attending every lecture and lab session and revising these topics for at least 2 hours afterwards. Don’t leave revision till right before exams.
-Starting essays as soon as they are allocated. Read and collect references for at least a few weeks before writing anything.
-Visiting the library and learning how to reference and cite correctly, that will probably make the biggest difference to grades. Also put extra effort into learning statistics, excel and data analysis.
-Don’t bother buying all the really expensive textbooks. I’m a visual learner and there are some really good resources available online. The Khan Academy videos really helped. If you need textbooks then you can find them in the library, but I found reading online journals when writing essays more valuable.

Excellent advice from @Highhi
DD did pretty much what was on your list. She used to consolidate all her lecture notes into neat notebooks. She didn't always manage to keep on top of them all the time so the Christmas and Easter breaks were used to complete any that she got behind on.

I had suggested that DD learned how to use excel, but she knew better, then when she started her dissertation I had to give her some tuition and do a few whizzy vlookups to show her what she needed.

I agree about attending lectures. During lockdown everything was online, but when DD went back for her third year they went back to F2F learning, and she said it was so much better.

Was your DD's degree IBMS accredited @thing47? DD's was accredited by the Royal Biological Society so she would have done different modules.

Was your DD's degree IBMS accredited @thing47?

Yes it was, and she spent her third year on placement in an NHS lab. That was what convinced her she didn't want to do that as a career, in fact, so it was very useful from that point of view!

She will still work broadly in the field, of course, but her Masters has given her a taste for doing more research.

DD is at Bath. Probably that does not tick the box for a city university. She's in her 2nd year. Bath asked for both biology and chemistry A levels.They allowed a dropped grade with an A*/A epq but still stipulated A grades were essential in A level chemistry and biology. Bath's selling point is a 3rd year in industry - which 2/3 of their undergrads do. They give a lot of support with securing a placement.