Nhs scientist training programme stp

You might be better off posting in this forum, that’s where the thread for this year’s applicants (and previous years) are:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=513

I’ll be starting my STP position next month, so O can’t really comment on how it is or whether it will be worth it. The application process is very tough, the first round involves online tests and short essay questions, then the interviews are also a little different to normal interviews. The number of places and where they are varies between specialisms, but as a rule it’s highly competitive. Many people, myself included, will apply multiple times becfore getting a place. There’s more information on the national school of healthcare science website, hope that helps!

Thanks!, if you dont mind me asking when did you apply ( was it after your BSC) also what did you do in the meantime whilst waiting to be accepted. Also what degree did you do? Just curious as im staring Y13 and looking at career opportunities.

I did Biological Sciences at uni, (not really knowing what to do at all afterwards, so good on you for thinking about careers early on), then took a gap year and worked for a healthcare charity to save up to do a master’s. It was a really useful experience for me because it encouraged me to want to work in healthcare. I then did an MSc in bioinformatics, which is a very broad and loosely defined area of biology but is essentially computational biology, it’s really interesting and increasingly popular. During my MSc I applied for the STP the first time, you can apply for two specialisms and I made it to the interview stage for both. The interviews weren’t amazing and I made it to the reserve shortlist for one specialism, where you might get a position if someone ranked above you doesn’t accept their offer, but I was ranked pretty low and didn’t get lucky.

I finished my MSc and started working in data consultancy - this is essentially helping companies manage their data better, or store it in different ways. Bioinformatics was a very useful subject for this because it has a lot of transferable skills, I found during undergrad that recruiters for any kind of tech or it firms were very sniffy about biology students and were only interested in other STEM subjects, but bioinformatics is very computer and maths heavy and makes the ‘hard science’ prejudice go away very quickly. The industry wasn’t really that applicable to healthcare, but I did learn about project management and development life cycles and other stuff that’s applicable for bioinformatics in general, so that was pretty useful for my next application.


Then I applied for the STP for the second time, this time I applied for two bioinformatics specialisms, had much stronger interviews and got offers for both specialisms. I don’t even think the content of my answers was much better, but having a year of working, as well as already having a comfortable job, gave me a lot more confidence.

This is a really long post and lot of stuff happened before I got my STP offer, but I’m not that unusual and a lot of people that apply will have worked for some time or done a PhD. That shouldn’t be intimidating though, the only requirement is to have a 2.1 or higher at undergrad and people do get posts straight out of uni that apply during their final year. I would really recommend going for it if you’re passionate about working in healthcare science, at this point you’ll need to think about what specialism you’re interested in and which degree you’d need to be eligible to apply, for example for clinical engineering relevant degrees include physics, maths and engineering, rather than biology.

Hi!

Thank you so much for your reply!
I too want to study Biology at Uni and in the process of applying. Did you so a 3 year BSC and apply for a 1 year Master Programme or do the 4 year Integrated Masters?

I did 3 years - I went to Oxford and they didn’t offer an integrated masters for biology so I didn’t have the option. I think they might be introducing MBiol degrees, I imagine I would have done 4 years if I could have, as most of my friends did 4 years, but after 3 years it was nice to have a break from studying and then to go somewhere different for my MSc.

Can I ask where you did your bioinformatics msc at? And if you think that having just an msc in bioinformatics is enough to go into industry, as I looked at some jobs and a LOT of them seemed to want a PhD and just having an msc wasn't enough.

I did my MSc at Manchester, and I’m not sure as I didn’t go into industry. Other people in my cohort did though without doing a PhD. Generally Bioinformatics skills are in high demand, so I think an MSc and some relevant experience can take you a long way. Job specs tend to have a lot of ‘nice to haves’ rather than absolute requirements, the only way to be sure is to ask those companies directly.

I did Biological Sciences at uni, (not really knowing what to do at all afterwards, so good on you for thinking about careers early on), then took a gap year and worked for a healthcare charity to save up to do a master’s. It was a really useful experience for me because it encouraged me to want to work in healthcare. I then did an MSc in bioinformatics, which is a very broad and loosely defined area of biology but is essentially computational biology, it’s really interesting and increasingly popular. During my MSc I applied for the STP the first time, you can apply for two specialisms and I made it to the interview stage for both. The interviews weren’t amazing and I made it to the reserve shortlist for one specialism, where you might get a position if someone ranked above you doesn’t accept their offer, but I was ranked pretty low and didn’t get lucky.

I finished my MSc and started working in data consultancy - this is essentially helping companies manage their data better, or store it in different ways. Bioinformatics was a very useful subject for this because it has a lot of transferable skills, I found during undergrad that recruiters for any kind of tech or it firms were very sniffy about biology students and were only interested in other STEM subjects, but bioinformatics is very computer and maths heavy and makes the ‘hard science’ prejudice go away very quickly. The industry wasn’t really that applicable to healthcare, but I did learn about project management and development life cycles and other stuff that’s applicable for bioinformatics in general, so that was pretty useful for my next application.


Then I applied for the STP for the second time, this time I applied for two bioinformatics specialisms, had much stronger interviews and got offers for both specialisms. I don’t even think the content of my answers was much better, but having a year of working, as well as already having a comfortable job, gave me a lot more confidence.

This is a really long post and lot of stuff happened before I got my STP offer, but I’m not that unusual and a lot of people that apply will have worked for some time or done a PhD. That shouldn’t be intimidating though, the only requirement is to have a 2.1 or higher at undergrad and people do get posts straight out of uni that apply during their final year. I would really recommend going for it if you’re passionate about working in healthcare science, at this point you’ll need to think about what specialism you’re interested in and which degree you’d need to be eligible to apply, for example for clinical engineering relevant degrees include physics, maths and engineering, rather than biology.