Biomedical Science or Medicine Degree?

Hi guys, I really love biology and so I want to focus my degree around that. Initially I thought of taking a biology degree, but I know that this degree isn't exactly the best one out there for employers.

Consequently, I decided to see if there were any other biology-related degrees that might make employers look more favourably upon me when it comes to looking for jobs. I was explaining this to my cousin (who has just done a degree at manchester uni in something ear-doctor related - sorry I can't remember the name, but now she's an audiologist/ordiologist??? Sorry I can't remember exactly what it's called), and she told me that medicine is very biology based, so why not apply for that?

Therefore, I began thinking about medicine, and thought of going to Birmingham university (which is local to me). However, a friend advised me not to apply to Bham Uni for medicine because they are GCSE heavy - for medicine - and so will prefer students with a high proportion of A*s-As, unlike my GCSEs: 2A*s, 6As and 3Bs.

This worried me a lot because I really want to go to Birmingham university. I was also thinking of applying to Manchester uni - which I don't mind much either.

I was telling my friends about my dilemma and they gave me advise on other biology related degrees I could do if I don't want to do medicine and this is where biomedical science emerged. I had never heard of it before and so I explored it when I got home. The topics involved in the courses were ones that I was interested in/didn't mind studying and there was a lot of practical work/laboratory work involved - which I think I prefer as I learn better from hands on stuff rather than just listening.

However, the careers that came from this degree were apparently things like research scientist and basically lab-type work and this didn't sound that exciting too me as it sounds like you're going to be stuck in a lab all day, doing the same repetitive tasks all over again the next day. So this slightly put me offf biomedical science.

Anyway, in my endless quest to find something to do with my life, my friends decided to help. They began questioning me on what career I would like to pursue after university, and after a hard interrogation, we found out that I wouldn't mind being a teacher! Which thinking about it, I don't actually mind since I am creative - so I wouldn't mind making presentations or powerpoints or lessons - and I love biology, so what better way to ensure a biology-related career!

However, my next problem ... biology teachers don't have the best of pays and I would at least want a comfortable pay, you know? So this is where I began toying with the idea of becoming a university lecturer: still teaching, but better pay, right? I told my friends, happy that I was hopefully coming to a decision about what i want to do, and they advised me that if I wanted to become a teacher not to waste 5 years doing medicine, when I can just take biomedical in 3 years and then become a teacher. The logic made sense since i don't want to waste my years away - or money as each year would cost £9,000. But I was still debating whether or not to do medicine - just in case I might not want to become a uni lecturer later (since i know that I change my mind a lot - and I bet you can tell that too!).

My parents realised that I was struggling to decide my future and so they told my cousins. One was the one from before - the one that went manchester Uni. Let's call her R. The other cousin, who was R's older sister and who we'll call S, had been to Nottingham uni and is practising law. S told me about three of her friends and their different situations. She told me that if I can't make up my mind between biomedical science and medicine, I should (as a back up) take biomedical science and then if I want to, go on to become a teacher. Otherwise, if I realise that I still want to do medicine (since the biomed course is similar to medicine), then I can enter medicine at postgraduate level. I liked this solution, but there was the obvious problem that if I end up doing the latter, i will spend more years at uni and thus waste more money.

Furthermore, with all this confusion in my mind, I forgot about my upcoming UKCAT exam - which I later rescheduled for 25th August, in order to give me more time to revise.

When my birthday came up in July, my cousin was there (the one that went Manchester Uni) and she asked about medicine and what unis I was thinking of. I told her that I had been looking entirely at universities for biomedical science and she was shocked and was surprised that I wasn't applying for medicine anymore. This surprised me and made me reconsider which degree should I do?

Currently, I am 17 years old and will enter year 13 this September (2016). I know that I want to apply for Birmingham uni for biomedical science (and their entry requirements are AAB or ABB + A in EPQ). I know that I can get into this - especially since I am doing an EPQ as well.
I want to also apply for Manchester Uni (AAA-ABB), which I can also hopefully get into.
I am thinking of putting Aston Uni as my back up (BBB).
I am considering whether or not I should use the last two choices for medicine or maybe for more biomedical ones, like Sheffield and Warwick. If I do apply for medicine, I would like to apply for Bham, but they say the only way a person with my GCSEs would get in is if I got a very high UKCAT score. I don't know if I would be able to achieve that.

And one last thing, my AS levels haven't exactly gone well. I haven't got my results yet - they come out on Thu 18th - but I know I have done bad in chem. I predict I'll get like a B in history, C in English literature, C in bio (hopefully) and D in chem. The reason I will get these bad grades is because my subjects that I am taking for AS/A Level are new specification and so at A2, I will get tested not only on A2 content, but also AS content too, so my mark from this year isn't exactly official (if you get me). As a result, I didn't study as hard as i could have and therefore messed up. My predicted grades will be **** and so I don't think universities will give me many offers, but I have already begun revising AS content over the summer for next years exams and plan to work my ass off to get very high scores next year.
I think no uni will give me offers this year and I'll probably have to get badass A Levels (hopefully a* in bio, A in chem and A in history), take a gap year and then reapply next year.

So in conclusion, what do you guys think of my situation? Yeah I admit I have done some stupid stuff, but should I take biomedical science or medicine? Should i take a gap year? any other useful advise? Thank you and I'm so sorry this turned out soooo long, I didn't mean to write a full-on lecture here! THANK YOU!!!

Hi guys, I really love biology and so I want to focus my degree around that. Initially I thought of taking a biology degree, but I know that this degree isn't exactly the best one out there for employers.

Consequently, I decided to see if there were any other biology-related degrees that might make employers look more favourably upon me when it comes to looking for jobs. I was explaining this to my cousin (who has just done a degree at manchester uni in something ear-doctor related - sorry I can't remember the name, but now she's an audiologist/ordiologist??? Sorry I can't remember exactly what it's called), and she told me that medicine is very biology based, so why not apply for that?

Therefore, I began thinking about medicine, and thought of going to Birmingham university (which is local to me). However, a friend advised me not to apply to Bham Uni for medicine because they are GCSE heavy - for medicine - and so will prefer students with a high proportion of A*s-As, unlike my GCSEs: 2A*s, 6As and 3Bs.

This worried me a lot because I really want to go to Birmingham university. I was also thinking of applying to Manchester uni - which I don't mind much either.

I was telling my friends about my dilemma and they gave me advise on other biology related degrees I could do if I don't want to do medicine and this is where biomedical science emerged. I had never heard of it before and so I explored it when I got home. The topics involved in the courses were ones that I was interested in/didn't mind studying and there was a lot of practical work/laboratory work involved - which I think I prefer as I learn better from hands on stuff rather than just listening.

However, the careers that came from this degree were apparently things like research scientist and basically lab-type work and this didn't sound that exciting too me as it sounds like you're going to be stuck in a lab all day, doing the same repetitive tasks all over again the next day. So this slightly put me offf biomedical science.

Anyway, in my endless quest to find something to do with my life, my friends decided to help. They began questioning me on what career I would like to pursue after university, and after a hard interrogation, we found out that I wouldn't mind being a teacher! Which thinking about it, I don't actually mind since I am creative - so I wouldn't mind making presentations or powerpoints or lessons - and I love biology, so what better way to ensure a biology-related career!

However, my next problem ... biology teachers don't have the best of pays and I would at least want a comfortable pay, you know? So this is where I began toying with the idea of becoming a university lecturer: still teaching, but better pay, right? I told my friends, happy that I was hopefully coming to a decision about what i want to do, and they advised me that if I wanted to become a teacher not to waste 5 years doing medicine, when I can just take biomedical in 3 years and then become a teacher. The logic made sense since i don't want to waste my years away - or money as each year would cost £9,000. But I was still debating whether or not to do medicine - just in case I might not want to become a uni lecturer later (since i know that I change my mind a lot - and I bet you can tell that too!).

My parents realised that I was struggling to decide my future and so they told my cousins. One was the one from before - the one that went manchester Uni. Let's call her R. The other cousin, who was R's older sister and who we'll call S, had been to Nottingham uni and is practising law. S told me about three of her friends and their different situations. She told me that if I can't make up my mind between biomedical science and medicine, I should (as a back up) take biomedical science and then if I want to, go on to become a teacher. Otherwise, if I realise that I still want to do medicine (since the biomed course is similar to medicine), then I can enter medicine at postgraduate level. I liked this solution, but there was the obvious problem that if I end up doing the latter, i will spend more years at uni and thus waste more money.

Furthermore, with all this confusion in my mind, I forgot about my upcoming UKCAT exam - which I later rescheduled for 25th August, in order to give me more time to revise.

When my birthday came up in July, my cousin was there (the one that went Manchester Uni) and she asked about medicine and what unis I was thinking of. I told her that I had been looking entirely at universities for biomedical science and she was shocked and was surprised that I wasn't applying for medicine anymore. This surprised me and made me reconsider which degree should I do?

Currently, I am 17 years old and will enter year 13 this September (2016). I know that I want to apply for Birmingham uni for biomedical science (and their entry requirements are AAB or ABB + A in EPQ). I know that I can get into this - especially since I am doing an EPQ as well.
I want to also apply for Manchester Uni (AAA-ABB), which I can also hopefully get into.
I am thinking of putting Aston Uni as my back up (BBB).
I am considering whether or not I should use the last two choices for medicine or maybe for more biomedical ones, like Sheffield and Warwick. If I do apply for medicine, I would like to apply for Bham, but they say the only way a person with my GCSEs would get in is if I got a very high UKCAT score. I don't know if I would be able to achieve that.

And one last thing, my AS levels haven't exactly gone well. I haven't got my results yet - they come out on Thu 18th - but I know I have done bad in chem. I predict I'll get like a B in history, C in English literature, C in bio (hopefully) and D in chem. The reason I will get these bad grades is because my subjects that I am taking for AS/A Level are new specification and so at A2, I will get tested not only on A2 content, but also AS content too, so my mark from this year isn't exactly official (if you get me). As a result, I didn't study as hard as i could have and therefore messed up. My predicted grades will be **** and so I don't think universities will give me many offers, but I have already begun revising AS content over the summer for next years exams and plan to work my ass off to get very high scores next year.
I think no uni will give me offers this year and I'll probably have to get badass A Levels (hopefully a* in bio, A in chem and A in history), take a gap year and then reapply next year.

So in conclusion, what do you guys think of my situation? Yeah I admit I have done some stupid stuff, but should I take biomedical science or medicine? Should i take a gap year? any other useful advise? Thank you and I'm so sorry this turned out soooo long, I didn't mean to write a full-on lecture here! THANK YOU!!!

Don't worry about your post being too long, true it could be more concise but i know sometimes it's difficult to make stuff shorter when the topic really matters to you. You're still VERY young and shouldn't worry so much about a level grades, they're not a reflection of your intelligence, worth and resourcefulness as a human being. But unfortunately the situation these days is 'reputable' universities demand those As and Bs but don't be too concerned with that, focus on choosing a subject which is both interesting to you and mentally stimulating, going for biomedical is a good bet because if you do end up wanting to go for graduate medicine afterwards, you will be well prepared and have a wide ranging awareness of the various disciplines under the umbrella of 'biomedical science' ranging from microbiology, thru genetics to physical analytical methods like spectroscopy. that's just my two cents tho.

Anyway, i noticed your post is from a year ago, what did you decide to do in the end?

Best wishes,
dharma