Applications to the Msci degree begin in September of L3 - which I will begin in well, September :P - so I'm not sure what the interviews are like. From what I've heard, the internal interview in the uni isn't too bad (as long as you have decent grades and a fair number of extra-curricular activities, of course); but placements must still be applied for externally, so there's no guarantee that you'll get a placement after successfully applying to the programme. The hardest part is applying to companies and research facilities during L3 - some people spend the entire two semesters applying and re-applying before obtaining a placement, while others don't get one at all in the end up; so I imagine it'll take a lot of persistence.
I messed up biology 1b by not attending enough labs, so I ended up getting a CR for that and doing 2nd year in two parts - I did chem 2X and 2Y last year(because I was still qualified to enter L2 chemistry), and this year I took: Essential Genetics 1a; Immunology (13a?); Infection and Immunity (3b); Building an Organism (4b); Microbiology (2c); and Molecules of Life (3c).
For me, the worst course was Microbiology - the second semester labs were great; but this was out-weighed by the incredibly tedious lectures, which were all full of either lists of bacterial species and strains or microbiological techniques we had already covered in labs. Having said that, the quality of the lectures and labs were top-notch; it's just that the content didn't match my interests. Also, you will find Infection and Immunity horrendously boring if you're not really into human disease, so I would advise against choosing that option unless you want to keep the Infection Biology degree pathways open.
The rest were great
. My only fault with Molecules of Life is that the first 20 lectures were a bit too basic, with the exception of the first proteins lecture, during which we had to memorise the sidechain structures of the 20 standard amino acids; oh the humanity! Be wary of Essential Genetics - because the lecture notes are formatted in a really simple manner, and nothing in the labs / lectures is too intellectually taxing, it's easy to convince yourself that you're due an easy A; BUT, the final exam is marked quite strictly, so you'll have to know your stuff to get a decent grade. Building an Organism and Immunology were my favourite modules this year. BanO was quite heavy on the plant molecular biology, which I love.
The Immunology lectures were structured quite sensibly - innate immunity lectures at the start of the semester, followed by acquired immunity and other aspects, such as hypersensitivity, cancer, vaccinations etc...; there was also a lecture or two dedicated to consolidating what we had learned so far (e.g. one of the lectures traced the body's immune response to different pathogens, from start to finish, highlighting the differences between each response. By the end it became apparent just how much we'd learned, and how complex the immune response is). Keep in mind though that L2 Immunology looks at the immune system in a purely dry, scientific way (as oppossed to Infection and Immunity, which is largely about the adverse affect pathogens have on thier hosts).
On the whole, L2 was great, and I learned a hell of a lot (my GPA for both this year and overall is now over 15). There are a lot less labs in L2 than in first year, unless you're taking chemistry (in which case there will be slightly more); but the huge amount of time we'll spend in the lab in L3 more than makes up for that, in my view
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Also, essays in L2 tend to be marked more strictly than in L1; so remember to try and quote a few original research papers in every piece of coursework you hand in (it's pretty much impossible to get more than an A5 quoting from textbooks and articles alone, I was told).