Queen Mary University Medicine

Hi,
I've gotten an offer to study undergraduate medicine at Barts and have a few questions/worries about it.

I know that Barts gives lots of offers to graduates for medicine, so I was wondering if being in the first year with many graduates (who have maybe done degrees like biochem or Biomed) would put me at a disadvantage.
I've also heard that Barts can be quite unreliable in terms of organization and in some cases, they tell you your placements a few days before they start. This could cause many issues with accommodation, especially in London where it's hard to find.
Also about accommodation, is student living in London that bad? I've heard lots of stuff about how stressful it can be to find affordable places to live.
Any advice would be appreciated, feel free to tell me that these worries are stupid and I'm crazy!

Hello there,
Why would the GEM students put you at a disadvantage? If you do well, you do well, regardless of how the grad students perform. Medicine is an unclassified degree too so it's not like people will know who did better than whom. And there will be 40 graduate students, compared with about 300 standard undergrad students. That's hardly a lot.
I've never personally heard the medical students complain about organisation, but it sounds about right. It won't be a problem though, your placements will be in London or nearby, so as long as you live somewhere London, you won't struggle to commute and get to your placements. You'll get several placements too so it makes very little sense to be constantly moving.
Student living in London is what you make of it. It is definitely expensive, but manageable with a little bit of ingenuity and hard work. During your first year you'll be eligible to live in Queen Mary / Barts' university halls, which are dirt cheap (at least compared to other university halls in London). During your second year onwards, you'll need to sort out accommodation by yourself. If you start early and are clever about it, you'll still be able to find a relatively affordable place to live.

Hi, I am an overseas student. I read that Dawson hall is better than floyer. However, it is further and that means maybe spending more on the transportation. How much more do u think I need to spend on transport if I choose Dawson over floyer? Is floyer that bad?