which med school?

birmingham v leicester medical school
i know that ultimately its up to me and i have pros and cons for both but i just dont know which to firm so any opinions?
thanks in advance

Reply 1

replaythat

Original post by emm4nuela

birmingham v leicester medical school
i know that ultimately its up to me and i have pros and cons for both but i just dont know which to firm so any opinions?
thanks in advance

Hey there, I'm a current medic at birmignham. I made a pros and cons list a while back so you can have a look below. My advice would be if you can pop down over the weekend or so to each of the city -> get its vibes. Have you been to open days? Feel free to ask me any questions. There are few people who can answer any questions relating to Leicester medical school.

Pros and Cons of Birmingham

Pros

- Diversity
- Great food places to eat
- Nothing is far away great transport links -> not to mention the on campus train station merely a 2 min walk from the medical school -> a 5 min journey into Birmingham New Street. Journey’s home made easier
- Great older year support -> CONNECT WITH THEM -> literally will send you all the notes (love the older years ) -> and the legendary MedSoc revison sessions! (holy grail)
- Reasonable support system -> you have personal academic tutor but often people just communicate with them when they have a problem, might meet up twice a year in general (literally haven't met mine this year )
- Good spread of clinical teaching -> GP’s first two years 8 placement each year, 1 every fortnight
- Exams -> Get assessed Semester by Semester rather than sitting all your exams in one sitting in June -> has its own pro’s and cons -> i.e less to revise given the shear amount of content but also you barely get holidays (i.e Christmas)
- Physiology teaching is sound -> Some module leads are EXCEPTIONAL honestly physiology teaching here is quite good. Most of them will go out of their way to help you out.
- Relatively cheaper to live in Birmingham
- Lots of soceities and great events -> love ISOC
- Lovely massive sports gym -> although it is on the other side of campus about 15 mins walk from the med school
- Lots of studying facilities inside the medical school and around campus generally (the latter being more aesthetically pleasing)

Cons
- Anatomy Teaching -> UoB students are not renowned for their anatomy. despite loads of complaining the teaching of anatomy in the dept will not change. Most of the students end up passing -> maybe we just like to complain hey ho (probs about 5-10 fail(
- Some clinical placements can be far starting as early as in year 1 -> i.e GP practice in Wolverhampton or a Hospital placement in Hereford (I've heard you get free accommodation at Hereford dont know whether this is true but I guess will find out next year)
- Late finishes -> 9:30pm for 3 weeks (9-9:30) not a nice sight but oh well -> It is what it is -> but its becuase of first aid training that you have to do
- 3rd year is a straight exposure into clinical
- Easter term is so weird compared to the Christmas term -> In the Christmas term you do all your 10-12 weeks of teaching + 1 consolidation week in the middle -> and then have 4 weeks of before exams to revise. In the second term you have 8 weeks of lectures and then 4 weeks of consolidation and then 3 more weeks of lecture and then 1 week off before exams start (a lot more stressful the second semester) -

- they change the timetable so that after your jan exams you will be back straight into lectures -> used to be that after exams you had a week off for UoB festival week. :frown:

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 2

emm4nuela

omg thank you so much!! i have been to both unis on open days and been to both cities multiple times as my siblings go to the respective unis; so far i have concluded that birmingham as a city has a lot more to offer and the campus is amazing, course seems good but perhaps not as good as leicesters from personal research and open days, leicester city not as great but campus is nice and high satisfaction rates for med students (everyone seems happy to be there); the semester by semester exams for birmingham is throwing me off a bit as would really like to fully enjoy holidays :biggrin:

but can see the pros of it too

Reply 3

Yelina

I got two offers from two great universities. Sheffield medicine and Aberdeen medicine. As I am an international student , I could not have chance to visit these cities. I feel more closer to Aberdeen however I need to pay 10,000 pounds more for it. I would like to check about your experiences suggestions and ideas for these two schools. Thanks.