York, Warwick, UEA for Biological / Biomedical Sciences?

[BobtheFrog]

Like the title really, my DD has narrowed her choices to these three (from so many!). In case its relevant, after first degree they are thinking of a Masters as a gateway into microbiology / immunology research (but that could change massively).

Don't know that much about any of them beyond what we learnt at Open Days and read online. Each seems to have pros and cons, would welcome opinions.

I think Newcastle was one of the earliest to go back to F2F as well.

One caveat - the cohort is huge (over 300) and the lecturers and tutors are really hands off. The only member of teaching staff that DD really had any rapport with was her dissertation tutor.

The Scots uni’s have excellent reputations for biomedical sciences.

Dundee in particular - their research is world class.

Edinburgh also good, as is Aberdeen.

Aberdeen in extreme financial difficulties though - I would be cautious about starting there. Lots of redundancies

I agree about Scottish Unis. The issue for me is they are a long way if the Op is south of the Midlands. It's not just getting up and down at the end of each semester but invariably they will want to come home for other bits; family birthdays or if they get ill or in my sons case because he forgot to pack half his stuff.
He has also gone up to look at houses when theirs fell through when the landlord sold and we ended up taking a long wheel base van to take his stuff and another students stuff back.
I'd personally think a 5 hour drive is the limit. Mine drives and is fairly self sufficient but grandparents live in Scotland and he has said a few times he's grateful he picked a central Uni ( Warwick) so he can get everywhere easily. It also doesn't seem so crazy now to look at moving north after he graduates as he's been able to visit friends in Liverpool and Manchester and get a feel for those too.

One of mine is in Scotland and we are SE. He’s in his 3rd year now and we have it down to a fine art. We only travel by car once a year to move his stuff as needed (won’t be needed this year as staying in same place). We treat it as a mini break as we love the city.

He comes home about 3- 4 times the rest of the year and flies as we are close to Gatwick and EasyJet are cheap as chips. His bus travel to the airport is free as is all bus travel in Scotland for his age and it’s quicker door to door than many of his friends who study closer to home because the flights are so good.

So I definitely wouldn’t discourage Scotland.

Nottingham?
Really good for Bio/biomed and it is a campus (like Lancaster) but has a big city there too
Lots of the labs take place at Queens medical centre which has excellent facilities

Agreed. Don't be put off Scotland by distance. Mine just started studying a biomedical science at Edinburgh and her experience so far of both the uni and the course is very positive. We are seeing the times we need to drive her and her stuff as a good opportunity to explore more of Scotland - delivering her to uni was combined with a mini break in Dumfries. She is coming home for a weekend in November and paid £35 return for EasyJet flights.

Mind you, that is as nothing compared to an older DD who studied abroad in Italy and once managed to get a flight back to uni for £4.25. At the time Ryan Air were offering 15% discounts and free hold baggage to Erasmus students and were dumping January flights at £5. Apparently Genoa is not a popular destination from the UK in January!

the only people I knew who did Msc’s were people looking to change their direction, or there were a couple who were recommended for it before a phd as it was felt their research skills weren’t strong enough yet.

Loving this thread with actual experts and people working in the field offering their advice and experience! Thank you.

This sums up what happened to DD2 @Howmanyusernames123. Did a 4-year biomed degree and discovered during her placement year that she actually wanted to go down the path of academic research. So she took her fourth year (and more specifically her dissertation) very seriously and did well enough to get onto a Masters in infectious diseases at LSHTM, a world leader in that field. She got a distinction in her MSc so now has all sorts of options for her next step.

FWIW in our data sample of one (!), no one seems terribly interested in her undergraduate degree (taken at a mid-rank university ranked way below those being discussed here). Her extremely impressive MSc has rendered that largely irrelevant.

Absolutely agree with this and the previous post. Almost no one goes to PhD from BSc now, the competition is so fierce everyone has an MSci or MSc or MRes as well. A good MRes from imperial plus a first from Portsmouth would get you a PhD interview above a 2:1 from Oxford and no MRes (and I run PhD interviews all the fecking time)

Hi, I was going to post a very similar question, so hope its ok to post on this thread Long time lurker, rare poster so let me know if not the right etiquette😂

My DC applying to study biomedical science. Y13. Alevels Maths, Biology and Psychology. Lack of Chemistry rules out a few unis (Bristol, Bath, Liverpool, Glasgow amongst others)

Favourites atm are Bham, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle. Doesn't like Warwick.

Questions atm are

1. Any views on the differences between these courses? So far B'ham looks to have less flexibility in Y1 &2 (but that might be a good thing?). Manchester much more. Not sure about the other 2 atm.
2. Bham seems to be based out of the medical school vs some of the others from a science school/dept. Does it make any difference?
3. Entry requirements seem to be very similar for biomedical science. So all above are AAB apart from Manchester at AAA. Biology for example seems to vary more. Any reasons for this?

Thanks in advance for any advice :)

DS attended the offer holders day for biological sciences at York. It was if they weren't trying to sell themselves. Other universities had been 'you can do this or you could do that and we have fabulous facilities and research that will have the opportunity to work on'. York was 'these are the undergraduate labs, you can't work in those labs unless you do a masters and ps that building up the corridor houses our research'. He was totally put off. He put the far more welcoming Sheffield as his insurance as a consequence. They do a BSc with optional year in industry and have strong links with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

If the stretch option is Durham, DS would recommend it. They have a common first year and then you can narrow down or like DS leave it as wide as on open gate! Interestingly, he was talking to a tutor about masters and the tutor said look closely as some masters would be a repeat of the lab experiences/skills you have already acquired.

@Ineedacoffeenow There is quite a lot of chemistry in biomed. You don't need it to do the course, but it does mean doing some catch up studying in the first year. DD said that she felt sorry for the students who hadn't done chemistry at A level.

Your DC might like to consider what they want to do with the degree. If they want to work in research a degree accredited by the Royal Biological Society might be a better option. RBS accredited degrees are much more flexible than IBMS degrees. The Newcastle degree is RBS accredited.

If they want to work in the NHS they should look at degrees accredited by the Institute of Biomedical Sciences. This means that they meet HCPC Standards of Proficiency to register as a biomedical scientist and work for the NHS. IBMS degrees are less flexible as they need to meet certain criteria set by the IBMS. It also doesn't matter where the degree is studied

Biomed lectures are delivered in the medical school at Newcastle.
Most of DD's friends have gone on to do a masters based on specialising in topics they studied during their degree - geneteics, immunology etc. DD is starting a masters in diagnostic radiography.

Yes, sorry I should have said, as per @RampantIvy's post above, DD2's Masters was also highly specialised – she focused on vector-borne diseases.

Have a look at Southampton which is hugely flexible, accredited and doesn’t need chemistry. I wouldn’t like to be based on the medical school as I think it is seen as the poor second option vs medicine which is highly annoying for the students

Thank you so much for this thread, its been super useful and interesting

Although to be completely fair, quite a few DCs do use a biomed degree as an alternative route into medicine – it's a long way round as it normally only knocks 1 year off a medical degree, but it is a well-recognised fallback option. DD2 never wanted to go into medicine, but a couple of course mates have.

The only real advantage of an IBMS-accredited degree is that you can start work in an NHS lab straight after you graduate whereas if you don't have that, you will have to take additional courses before they consider you fully qualified.

In our DD's experience – and it sounds as if it's the same for @RampantIvy's DD – many biomed students go on to take further qualifications in more specialised areas anyway. I'm not sure what store the private sector sets by IBMS accreditation, perhaps some of the experts on here can say?

Just to add, there are quite a few degrees accredited by both RSB and iBMS some of which are pretty good

@BatshitIsTheOnlyExplanation.. Out of interest would your people employ someone who did a biolgy degree at Bristol or Bath without chemistry or another science? Does it matter once they have a biolgy degree?

@Drampa as above would it be OK to have a broad degree in biolgy without chemistry or maths etc for future work in the field

Yes that would be fine, as long as they had passed all their modules well at university (which will include modules on chemistry, statistics, etc)

Thanks what's the difference between bci and mxsi

BSci is an undergraduate degree, MSci is a post grad - or undergrad with a 4th year add on, creating the bridge to taking a PhD.

taking this thread in another direction again, seen integrated Masters degrees (lots of Unis seem to have them these days) wonder if they are actually worth it for someone looking to break in to a career in research?

• I have not encouraged my young adults to look at them, suggesting they keep flexibility after BSc where they can change uni or pursue a specialism

They seem to work out cheaper than doing BSc compared to a separate taught MSc (because your extra year is often charged at UG rate) but I cant see any real advantage of integrated, am I missing something?

Thoughts?

The other financial side is that an integrated master's is treated as an extra year of undergrad for loan purposes. A standalone master's can only get a loan of £12.4k towards fees and living costs combined, and it's repaid separately.

You can usually easily switch between the two, grades permitting. I certainly wouldn’t be putting anybody off applying for an integrated masters on the grounds of reduced flexibility. If anything, it increases options, not reduces them.