Nuffield science bursary

One tip - get it in early! They start giving out placements to applicants before the official deadline so be quick if you want to guarantee yourself one

I managed to get a placement by late January as I had sent it off early December, whereas my friend who applied for a similar placement didn't get one because they'd all gone by March!

Hey I was thinking about applying, and I want to do medicine, do they assign you placements and stuff or do you select them?
Also, do you apply independantly or do the school get involved?

Hey I was thinking about applying, and I want to do medicine, do they assign you placements and stuff or do you select them?
Also, do you apply independantly or do the school get involved?

You register your interest with your local co-ordinator and they will then send you a list of placements available in your area. These placements are usually within a company/hospital which has a job they need doing, and you apply to the hospital or company to fill that slot -- e.g. if a placement ding a patient satisfaction audit takes your fancy, you apply for that place and that place only.

If you don't like the idea of any of the placements they have to offer, you can set one up yourself, but few people choose to do this as it is quite difficult. The only people I met who'd done this were the sons of consultants and so on.

You need to ask a teacher to write a reference for you, and they might later get involved in you presenting your findings, but it is mostly independent -- you get yourself to the interview and your school isn't involved in your actual work.

ooh sounds good So what exactly does the project itself inviolve? Do you have to write a report/present something at the end?

Hey I was thinking about applying, and I want to do medicine, do they assign you placements and stuff or do you select them?
Also, do you apply independantly or do the school get involved?

The majority of the time they assign you your placement unless you specifically state that you're going to find your own. In the application form you have to state what you're interested in so try and keep it broad so they're more likely to find a suitable placement for you. most people say that you shouldn't say you want to do medicine on the application because you won't get a placement but i wrote that i was interested to see how the other side of medicine works because as a doctor you'll be involved in research as well and it will help decide if i want to go more into academic medicine or not.
fundamentally the application is independent but you just need your school's approval due to the insurance stuff and a reference

Is applying to the NIMR suitable?

The NIMR have a separate application process where you either write an essay for their essay competition and win first prize or you fill in their version of the nuffield application, send it off then get called for interviews. you should definitely check that out, they do some incredible research there

I am guessing ur doing chemistry at uni?
Also, which one if u r?
do u have to write an essay or can you just send an application off? How hard is it to become succesfull?

Nope. applying for medicine at uni this year i was considering chemistry because it's amazing but i wouldn't really enjoy any jobs relating to that at the end of it.

you can do either of them but if you do the application make sure you get the NIMR specific one off their site. it's basically the same as the official nuffield one but just filled out with NIMR details. I think it's harder to get a placement at the NIMR because there are only a few places available and because of the interviews etc... if you're not fussy about where the placement is then you should just apply to the main nuffield one, specify your area of interest and let them find you one. you're more likely to get a placement if you do it that way.

if you need any help just let me know