Rough idea of contact hours for biomedical science

I've applied to study biomedical science at Lincoln, Sheffield Hallam (have offers for both of those) and Nottingham Trent. I'm just wondering if someone can give me a rough idea of how many days/hours I can expect to spend at uni each week. I'm aware it varies depending on modules and terms etc, but I am just trying to work out how close I need/want to be to the unis in terms of travel times and things. Thanks

I've applied to study biomedical science at Lincoln, Sheffield Hallam (have offers for both of those) and Nottingham Trent. I'm just wondering if someone can give me a rough idea of how many days/hours I can expect to spend at uni each week. I'm aware it varies depending on modules and terms etc, but I am just trying to work out how close I need/want to be to the unis in terms of travel times and things. Thanks

Hi @srglass

It's hard to give an exact answer about weekly contact hours as this varies a lot depending on whether or not lab sessions are scheduled.
Labs are 3 hours long, some weeks you could have 3 or 4 labs sessions and other weeks 0.

In an academic year you will study the equivalent of 6 x 20 credit modules, each of which has approximately 50 contact hours in year 1 and 40 in year 2 and 3.


A full-time student on average can expect to spend 1200 hours a year learning which will typically be broken down as follows:

Year 1 - lectures/seminars/workshops (23%) and independent study (77%)

Year 2 - lectures/seminars/workshops (21%) and independent study (79%)

Year 3 - lectures/seminars/workshops (20%) and independent study (80%)

I hope that helps


Felix

Thank you for that, that is useful information. I’m just trying to figure out how close to/far from the Unis would be feasible to live in terms of travelling depending on how many days a week on average I would need to be there.

The earliest you will likely be in uni will be 9am and latest 6pm. I would plan to be able to make it in everyday Monday to Friday.

The length of commute would be very much up to you. Are you looking to live in halls? If so, we have accommodation all of over Nottingham with the majority very close to campus. You can check out your options on our accommodation website.

Nottingham has excellent public transport with trams and buses throughout the city. The university is also only 15 minutes walk from the train station.

If you have any further questions don't hesitate to let me know.

Thanks

Felix

I've applied to study biomedical science at Lincoln, Sheffield Hallam (have offers for both of those) and Nottingham Trent. I'm just wondering if someone can give me a rough idea of how many days/hours I can expect to spend at uni each week. I'm aware it varies depending on modules and terms etc, but I am just trying to work out how close I need/want to be to the unis in terms of travel times and things. Thanks

Hi there @srglass!

I am a student rep for the University of Lincoln and studied Biomedical Science for my undergraduate degree (now do a masters in microbiology here)! We typically had about 8/9 hours in 1st year, 8 hours in 2nd and 3rd year. You will be studying 4 modules per semester which will have typically 2 hours of teaching per week. Additionally to this you will have weeks where you will have labs which are in 3 hour blocks so sometimes your week will have 11 hours of teaching but labs aren't every week, and usually they don't last the 3 hours. Our university hours run from 9am until 6pm, we have good transport links around Lincoln with the train and bus stations just a 5 minute walk to campus, alternatively to this there is plenty of parking close to campus.

Any more questions please let us know!
Lexy

Thank you, that is really helpful That is also much fewer hours than I anticipated!

I've applied to study biomedical science at Lincoln, Sheffield Hallam (have offers for both of those) and Nottingham Trent. I'm just wondering if someone can give me a rough idea of how many days/hours I can expect to spend at uni each week. I'm aware it varies depending on modules and terms etc, but I am just trying to work out how close I need/want to be to the unis in terms of travel times and things. Thanks

Hi again @srglass,
I have contacted some Biomedical Science students I recently did a video with on placement at Sheffield Children's Hospital in the Haematology department with your query, hopefully they get back to me with an answer soon I can also share this video with you once it is ready as it gives a great insight to their opinion of the course and how it prepares you for placement.
- Ella

That's great, thank you. The video sounds like it will be really interesting too