Biomedical Science Society Thread

Yes I will be starting this October at Imperial College London. I will be looking to do my PhD elsewhere due to the high living costs! My research project is 7 months long, so I should be prepared for doctoral research after I finish. I also plan to work in a research lab after my finish my MSc prior to starting my PhD. Yes, my interest in immunology began when I was introduced into the concept of monoclonal antibodies, I hope to do a PhD in this field with elements of immunology and oncology combined. Where are you doing your PhD atm?

There are several ways you can get into a PhD programme.

If you're in third year for Biomed, are you going to be doing a research project in your final year? If so, then do not pick one because it sounds like you'll find the cure to cancer by the end of it- pick one that has the core biomedical research techniques: PCR, flow cytometry and tissue/cell culturing techniques.

Generally it is quite hard for an undergraduate to get on a funded PhD programme straight after university. You'd would very much likely need to graduate with a first and have done a research project in your final year. You'd also have to do some serious sucking up to your supervisors and be their golden child as otherwise they'll most likely prefer a more experienced person. (Learn how to bake cakes- scientists are suckers for cake!).

Having said all this, I would very much strongly recommend doing a MSc (with at least 4 months of research project included) or Mres if you want to do research.

The problem with Biomedical Sciences is it is plagued with students who want to do medicine or dentistry. You do a lot of general biology like anatomy, but do not cover the basic molecular things in near enough detail for research. When you do a good MSc or Mres, 90% of students want to do a PhD afterwards so it very much supports this.

Talk to your personal tutor and they'll offer you good advice.

Funding is the trickiest part of research.
You can fund yourself (i.e. have no salary until you can get some data and beg for a charity to fund you), but this is unrealistic unless you're super rich and have a kick ass project in mind.

Or you could register for a PhD well planned out before which already has funding. (FindaphD.com).

Or you could get your employer to pay for your PhD. (This is what I've done so I can't really help much with the other funding aspects).

Hope this helped!

Do you need to do the bmat for Biomedical Science? I heard that it's a requirement for Imperial, not applying for Imperial but curious whether other universities want you to do the beat

Hi guys,

I have heard in previous years that biomed a imperial requires the BMAT. However, for 2017 entry I noticed BMAT was not mentioned. Can anyone confirm this please?

Hi. From what I heard, only Oxford now want BMAT for biomed but other unis do not require any admissions tests so you're fine if you are not applying to Oxford. ICL changed their course to BSc Medical Bioscience and they do not specify BMAT in entry requirements. Here's the link where you can see which unis use BMAT and for what courses and you can see it's a test used mainly for medicine and vet degrees:

http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/bmat/about-bmat/

Hope this helps. You can always double check with course admissions at the unis you are considering if you are unsure

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I just been reading the entry criteria for SGUL
( http://www.sgul.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/undergraduate-courses/biomedical-science-bsc-hons/entry-requirements)
and at the bottom of the A level requirements it says :

"Applicants must be aware that any offer made on the basis of their re-sits will make their previous A levels null and void and there can be no mixing and matching of grades from different academic cycles."

can somebody please explain what they mean by no mixing and matching of grades? Does that mean you would have to resit all modules for them to consider you? What if you are resisting as an external candidate?


Posted from TSR Mobile

Hi there. I think it means that if you retake your A-levels, the university will not count your previous grades. Instead, they will base an offer only on your resit grades rather than what you had previously. Say you had ABB before and after a retake you have AAA, it's the AAA grades the university will be looking at when deciding on whether to offer you a place. The same applies to if you resat and got lower grades like BBB...the offer will be based on the most recent grades.

For "mixing and matching" part, that just means e.g. if you had an A before and got a C on resit, they will not be averaging that to a B overall. They will only look at the C grade you get in your resit as it will override the old grade which no longer counts.

As for "Does that mean you would have to resit all modules for them to consider you?" - I don't think it matters if you are retaking one or 10 modules for a subject. If you are retaking any module, you will get a new grade for it, which will affect your overall grade for that subject. This new overall grade will be the one the university will look at when they will be deciding whether to make you an offer or not.

Hope that makes sense

If you are unsure, I would contact admissions at the university you are applying to and ask them to clarify this.

Guys I'm in my first year of biomed, and Im stuggling to study because my lecturers just give brief info about a topic for an hour and the rest of the time it is self study... I dont know wherre to go about and how to study, what to make notes on and from... I'm totally lost
So far I've relistened to the lactures i;ve recorded and made notes from the slides but thats all.....

Any help is appreciated!!

Hi there. Have you only just started? If you only just started your first year then it's pretty normal for the first few lectures to be brief as it is only the beginning. You will then build on these with the upcoming lectures. The semester lasts until December so you have plenty of time to get the big details. This is meant to be like a recap of what you know already from your A-levels. Lecturers are not that evil to jump staright into the hardcore details!

In terms of notes, I would say write what you feel needs writing down. I found it best to write things down even if I knew them from before. That way, when it comes to exams, you don't start worrying about finding the old notes and doubting whether you understand everything right. Under exam stress, I used to doubt myself on the most basic stuff because I got used to the difficult details so it is always good to have the full set of notes all in one place.

But as I said, don't worry too much about it not being too hard at this stage as you're a fresher. It's good that at least you know you are ok with basics as it makes the job of building up on them much easier in the future

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I'm 3weeks into the course Thanks for the help!
Also what kind of resources and how did you make your notes?

@Rhythmical have fun!

Does anyone have any advice on finding a placement.

Guys I'm in my first year of biomed, and Im stuggling to study because my lecturers just give brief info about a topic for an hour and the rest of the time it is self study... I dont know wherre to go about and how to study, what to make notes on and from... I'm totally lost
So far I've relistened to the lactures i;ve recorded and made notes from the slides but thats all.....

Any help is appreciated!!

I'm in my first year of Biomed too and I understand what you're saying :c