Nottingham or Swansea GEM A101

Hello fine folk at TSR, I was hoping you could help me decide between the graduate entry med course at either notts or Swansea.

Hopefully it might be useful to other students in the incredibly lucky situation of having an offer from both unis. My currents note on both unis are as follows.

Nottingham:

+Dissection
+Early patient contact
+A more elite institution than Swansea (higher in rankings)
-Larger intake, 87 students
=PBL
+Small group teaching
-Based in derby not Nottingham
+Big into research
+Good prep for transition into final year

Swansea:

-Prosection
+Early patient contact
-Lower ranking than notts
+Smaller intake, 73 students
=Spiral Learning
+Beautiful surroundings
+Going more into research
+New and more ambitious

I have put little positive and negative notations on what I consider good, bad and that which I am indifferent too. Some of the question I have are:

Does the intake size matter that much and have an impact on teaching?

How much stock should I be putting in the University rankings?

What do actual students think about the quality of teaching in the university? How prepared do you feel for F1 and beyond?

How much of an effect does full body dissection have on learning anatomy? Is there opportunity for full body dissection on the grad course or is that just for those in Nottingham not derby?

How involved can you get in the research sore of medicine during the degree?

Any help would be much obliged.

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Reply 1

EBG92

7

Original post by Azrael_Alexnder

Hello fine folk at TSR, I was hoping you could help me decide between the graduate entry med course at either notts or Swansea.

Hopefully it might be useful to other students in the incredibly lucky situation of having an offer from both unis. My currents note on both unis are as follows.

Nottingham:

+Dissection
+Early patient contact
+A more elite institution than Swansea (higher in rankings)
-Larger intake, 87 students
=PBL
+Small group teaching
-Based in derby not Nottingham
+Big into research
+Good prep for transition into final year

Swansea:

-Prosection
+Early patient contact
-Lower ranking than notts
+Smaller intake, 73 students
=Spiral Learning
+Beautiful surroundings
+Going more into research
+New and more ambitious

I have put little positive and negative notations on what I consider good, bad and that which I am indifferent too. Some of the question I have are:

Does the intake size matter that much and have an impact on teaching?

How much stock should I be putting in the University rankings?

What do actual students think about the quality of teaching in the university? How prepared do you feel for F1 and beyond?

How much of an effect does full body dissection have on learning anatomy? Is there opportunity for full body dissection on the grad course or is that just for those in Nottingham not derby?

How involved can you get in the research sore of medicine during the degree?

Any help would be much obliged.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I understand you have a difficult choice to make but you are literally in a great position. As someone who is on both waiting lists I recommend choosing Swansea you negatives for it aren't strong ones. I think the smaller class size allows you to receive more attention when being taught and pro-section can sometimes be better than full body as pro-section is expertly done and it is much easier to see what is being discussed rather than a full body sometimes messy dissection. As for University Rankings lets be honest medicine is medicine and no matter which university you go everyone will just see you studied medicine which is a ridiculously difficult course to get in to and do well in so I wouldn't put much stock in that unless it is either Oxford or Cambridge.

Reply 2

tinyvortex

Hey I managed to get two offers mega happy! Which is great as I didn't really want to go to Swansea and now I can give someone else the chance, these are my pros and cons if that is helpful (they may come across slightly biased but that is because I have already made my choice!)

Nottingham:
- (I asked and No dissection unfortunately - that's just for undergrads)
+ early patient contact
+ better uni than Swansea
+ better location - midlands (only 1st/half of 2nd year is in Derby)
+ in Derby, small location not covered with Freshers from other courses and more support for the GEM course
+ Own PBL room to chill in with whiteboards, all the books you need etc
+ Research opportunities - I asked and there is opportunity in summer to do research and throughout the course, they have a society for it apparently
+ established course it has been running for 10 years plus
+ £3000 bursary in the first year!

Swansea
+ early patient contact
+ nice location, pretty
- bad location to get to from anywhere else in the country
- spiral learning
- little research opportunities
+ ability to get to go on wards/in surgeries from day 1 (if you are lucky)
- previous issue with course being having to be stopped half way at Swansea and moved to Cardiff due to inadequate teaching.. (I know this is now sorted but still made me worried)
- only let you shadow F1s before you take over job if you are in Wales
+ common room

Also I think course rankings should count to an extent, obviously choose a university you will be happy with but if your career progression is going to be boosted by a better university then I think you should always choose the better one, In terms of the dissection I think both Nottingham and Swansea offer similar things - although I think Nottingham offer smaller teaching groups which I think is better personally.

Hope that is helpful - maybe see you in September! :biggrin:

Reply 3

Azrael_Alexnder

OP

Original post by EBG92

I understand you have a difficult choice to make but you are literally in a great position. As someone who is on both waiting lists I recommend choosing Swansea you negatives for it aren't strong ones. I think the smaller class size allows you to receive more attention when being taught and pro-section can sometimes be better than full body as pro-section is expertly done and it is much easier to see what is being discussed rather than a full body sometimes messy dissection. As for University Rankings lets be honest medicine is medicine and no matter which university you go everyone will just see you studied medicine which is a ridiculously difficult course to get in to and do well in so I wouldn't put much stock in that unless it is either Oxford or Cambridge.

I know I'm in an awesome position in having a choice between the two, the point you make are some of the reasons why i'm leaning towards Swansea. I have just been so focused on get any offer that I had not really given it much thought about which uni I wanted to go to.

Original post by tinyvortex

Hey I managed to get two offers mega happy! Which is great as I didn't really want to go to Swansea and now I can give someone else the chance, these are my pros and cons if that is helpful (they may come across slightly biased but that is because I have already made my choice!)

...

Swansea

- little research opportunities
- previous issue with course being having to be stopped half way at Swansea and moved to Cardiff due to inadequate teaching.. (I know this is now sorted but still made me worried)
- only let you shadow F1s before you take over job if you are in Wales

First congratulations on getting a place mate. I did not know about the issues regarding the course being stopped. Any chance you could give more information on that. From what i remember of the interview day at swansea I believe they are in the process of building a new research building whether that means it will translate to more research opportunities while I'm there if i go is another thing. The last point will notts let you shadow F1s if your in england?

Reply 4

tinyvortex

Cheers after three years of applying it has finally paid of! It still feels really surreal! Congrats on yours too!
And this is a news article about it http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/swansea-medical-students-switch-cardiff-1837500
If you google swansea graduate entry and the GMC - it comes up with some reports as well, from what I have read the course seems fine now though

Yeh I really want to do an academic F1 so I'm really into my research and didn't want to take the chance with Swansea, and Nott's lets you shadow F1s in england from what I remember from the open day. :smile:

Reply 5

Smallcurlygirl

Original post by tinyvortex

Cheers after three years of applying it has finally paid of! It still feels really surreal! Congrats on yours too!
And this is a news article about it http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/swansea-medical-students-switch-cardiff-1837500
If you google swansea graduate entry and the GMC - it comes up with some reports as well, from what I have read the course seems fine now though

Yeh I really want to do an academic F1 so I'm really into my research and didn't want to take the chance with Swansea, and Nott's lets you shadow F1s in england from what I remember from the open day. :smile:

I heard this too, so did abit of digging after my offer and spoke to a friend who graduated from Swansea a few years ago. They said it was that the school didn't have enough consultant level assessors/clinical links, so students had to be externally validated (or assessed or something along those lines). I did worry at first but it appears to have been sorted since 2011 :smile:

Reply 6

AJ31890

Original post by tinyvortex

+ £3000 bursary in the first year!

Ok what's the story with that bursary? Who qualifies for it? Because this is the first I heard of it and I just firmed my offer. I presume conditional offer on the basis of grades, which I already got, and background check, and I am an absolute innocent angel so all good there, means I'm in right? There aren't any other loopholes or fences to get over?

Reply 7

tinyvortex

Original post by AJ31890

Ok what's the story with that bursary? Who qualifies for it? Because this is the first I heard of it and I just firmed my offer. I presume conditional offer on the basis of grades, which I already got, and background check, and I am an absolute innocent angel so all good there, means I'm in right? There aren't any other loopholes or fences to get over?

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/studentservices/financialsupport/bursariesandscholarships/guaranteedbursaries2013.aspx
:smile:

Reply 8

AJ31890

Oh so it's only for the first year and you have to have an annual income of £15000.or less. That's a very tight line to toe.

Reply 9

AJ31890

Oh so it's only for the first year and you have to have an annual income of £15000.or less. That's a very tight line to toe. I don't think I'll qualify for any if it to be honest. Unless they evaluate me separately from my family, which is probably not going to happen, as I love at home but do not get any money from them? I work in retail and have very little savings as I didn't think I get in this year... And I make very little.

Reply 10

tinyvortex

If you have been financially independent for 3 years despite living at home, I don't think they take into account your family income if that is relevant to you? :smile:

Reply 11

Azrael_Alexnder

OP

While I am now waiting for the open day to make up my mind. For me I think the choice will come down to the teaching. From looking around Swansea seems to have a more traditional course while Nottingham is more PBL focused.

I don't suppose anyone knows to what extent each courses teaching is like. But speaking to a few drs where I work a lot of them did not like PBL. As many felt it left then with gaps on there knowledge and that for 3k a year they were paying to teach themselves. I'm hoping someone could shed some light on this.

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