The Student Room Group

A realistic journey:will I get into medicine and meet my dreams?

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Hi Everyone (excuse my gorgeous cat),
After a bit of a quiet blog last year I am back and determined to keep this blog going a bit better than before and ready to get through this final year of school.

In honesty, I am absolutely terrified: the content is harder than year 12, the work tougher, the a levels are rapidly closing in, the medicine application process likely to end in rejection and lets be honest, I have a whole bunch of stuff to sort out before I go to uni as I can't really cook that well and in no way feel like an adult...

This blog is just going to be a place where I post updates on my life in order to keep my motivation up and share my advice, journey and insights into this experience. I am of course open to suggestions of what to post to!

Below is the boring but quintessential stuff for all medicine applicants: the stats!

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I suppose it's time to get back to my studying after my lunch break - wish me luck
New Week, new window of opportunity

This week I have to go into college on Thursday and Friday to sort out a few administrative bits and bobs before I have another whole week of holiday before the absurdity of year 13 begins. My plans for the week are to search a bit about unis for interview preparation and do a bit of cooking for the week to practice my skills. In addition, I have got the pesky EPQ to try and crack through - my advice would be not to just take it for UCAS as I'm not applying to the unis it would help me at anymore. I also want to revise the year 12 content one last time before college so wish me luck there.
Original post by DGeorge13
New Week, new window of opportunity

This week I have to go into college on Thursday and Friday to sort out a few administrative bits and bobs before I have another whole week of holiday before the absurdity of year 13 begins. My plans for the week are to search a bit about unis for interview preparation and do a bit of cooking for the week to practice my skills. In addition, I have got the pesky EPQ to try and crack through - my advice would be not to just take it for UCAS as I'm not applying to the unis it would help me at anymore. I also want to revise the year 12 content one last time before college so wish me luck there.

Best of luck with your studies! How have you got on this week - did you manage to get the administrative bits and bobs sorted? :smile:
Original post by brainzistheword
Best of luck with your studies! How have you got on this week - did you manage to get the administrative bits and bobs sorted? :smile:


Hi - sorry for the delay - too busy sorting stuff out but yes thank you I did.
At some point I’ll edit this post for a nice caption or at least some basic formatting but for now just posting a small update.

Year 13 : started back today and so far so good. It was really nice to see all my friends again and get going with studying.
Chemistry: First lesson was a review of papers from last year and in the 2019 as papers I got 131/140 - slightly disappointed as a few really silly mistakes but hopefully can be ironed out with practise and definitions practise as well as READING THE QUESTIONS!
Biology : I had a study period but I had to get some epq stuff done as I was up to speed on biology from summer and have lots tomorrow after school. First lesson is tomorrow but all prepped - just praying I can keep my first year knowledge to standard whilst going through second year content which looks alright actually.
Maths - had a study period and got quite a decent chunk of homework done consolidating the second year content taught so far from our weekly work schedule. No let up here as straight back in with inverse trig functions and news of a test next week so I will have to dedicate some time to reviewing the more recent pure stuff from second year as I need to do well on it if not only for my confidence.

When I got home I spent half an hour organising and made coffee and had a muller light yoghurt with some mango to give me some energy to study. I carried on with some maths homework then looked at some videos on my vle before doing some exercises from the textbook. After dinner I looked at some chemistry questions on year one analysis - I will openly admit I got distracted by the student room medicine forums which I have been less active on since college has started again and ended up looking at a virtual open day before watching bake off; I will make this up though as I always wake up at 6 and the news feed will still be similar if I watch it earlier so I can catch this up. Tomorrow should be interesting and I have some sort of talk thing I have to go to at lunch which will be intriguing.
Below is my revision timetable which I will put on here in case anyone is actually curious into what I do in my spare time and to show how it changes over the year
I’ll add the photo tomorrow when I’m on my computer as I can’t be bothered to get it out and go through the rigmarole of putting it on my dashboard to drag across!
The schedules:

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Update 13/09/2019
So my first week back at college is done and didn’t go too bad but I’m honestly so happy it’s the weekend - roll on lots of studying as even though all the homework is done there is an endless amount of revision to do. I have got settled back into the routine of year 13 and am really pleased with all my teachers which is great. It’s so scary that there are 6 weeks of this half term then 7 then 6 then 5 then 5 then study leave (obviously holidays not included)

Biology
Had a couple of lessons and so far so good. We had two lessons this week and did the chromatography practical and then did a lesson in ecosystem definitions. We’ve been given all of the folder dividers until Christmas which was quite scary as there are only four short topics left after that and I know time is going to fly. The content hasn’t been too bad yet although a tad boring if I’m honest as ecosystems are not my personal interest. This looks similar for the rest of the year although there do appear to be a couple of harder sections (subtopics only thankfully). My main worry is how I’m going to keep all the information in my head.

Chemistry
The first couple of lessons back have been ok and I got my papers back from last year and I would have got an a on the as if I’d sat it which is reassuring although I dropped 9 mainly silly marks which is a bit annoying. The ph topic doesn’t look too bad and I’ve read ahead a bit and looks like I’m ok until redox titrations and then some of the second year organic looks hard.

Maths
We’ve been thrown straight back in here and have started second year trigonometry and if I can remember the identities here I should be ok but I am absolutely terrified for some of the topics that are to come especially mechanics and I’ve heard that differentiation and integration are quite hellish too. I have a test next week so wish me luck.

Epq
So far my project has developed into a bit of a monstrosity and I am drowning in supporting evidence and have yet to begin writing the project. I’m really stressed by my new supervisor as I had checked I didn’t need to do something to do with references but my new supervisor says I have to do it which will take a little bit of time and there’s still the actual essay to write although I’ve heard that part isn’t too bad...

Uni stuff
I’ve been seeing my mentor about my medicine application and that’s going alright and I’ve started practising for interviews - how do you remember all the relevant information and know how to answer every question thrown at you without sounding rehearsed and ticking all the boxes ? This is the part of the application I’m most worried for as I see so many potential areas to fall down and that is really stressing me out as I feel the rest of the application should be ok. I’ve started practising with my family and know my structure needs work and I keep beating myself up over my points as I don’t think they’re good enough but that’s life and only practice can hopefully overcome that. I just want the whole ucas thing over as it’s so much stress!

Life stuff
I baked some vegan blondies today which seem like they’ll be really good and have planned out my lunches for next week so I don’t have to think that much about it in the new week and this should be good. Also I have my first driving lesson next week - I’ve been able to start for ages but kept putting it off and so now I’ve got that to look forward to and have signed up for some questionnaire thing by the dvsa- re the theory test I bought a kit through my college but kind of don’t know how to use it so we’ll have to see how that goes but there we are...

TLDR.
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So today I’ve been looking at a bit of interview preparation as well as some studying (and it’s going ok I guess but I’m still pretty bad at answering [i know my writing is atrocious])
I’ve seen the UCAT interim deciles and decided to just bite the bullet and apply and I’m really thankful for everything that has been advised by people in the medicine thread. My UCAT sits at roughly better than 90%of score and so at the interim results stage which are usually higher than the final ones I have made the decision about which unis I’m picking and have sent my form. I could have waited a bit but I’d just have procrastinated and stressed flitting back and forth on my fourth choice so hitting send on the application has been a relief.

My choices:
Newcastle (PARTNERS)
Exeter (through scholars)
UEA
Bristol
Wish me luck everybody - I have the Newcastle partners form to do but then I can just move on for a bit
I’ve had my first driving lesson everyone and I’m still here - I genuinely am surprised by that as I was slightly worried about how haphazard it could have been! Yay me...
Hi again if anyone is / has / will read this...

This week has been a mixed picture. There’ve been moments I’ve felt pretty at ease and chilled about year 13 and a levels and uni applications and times where it’s all seemed a bit much and I’ve struggled to believe my predicted grades.

Biology
The content has been ok; we’ve done a photosynthesis practical (only 3 PAGs to go!) and some energy and ecosystems work. The content has been manageable although I do want to draw a nitrogen cycle and finish up my notes on that and then attempt a synoptic essay. I have 3 revision sessions to catch up on as I’ve felt a bit ill this week which sucks but should get that done over the weekend.

Chemistry
Buffers. What more is there to say? At the beginning of the week I was confident and could answer all the questions and got all the theory but then today I kept getting the description of how they work upside down and the wrong way around - in my defence I’ve been feeling rotten all day but and this does require some thought and I haven’t really been thinking straight but it’s not really good enough. Just going to have to write some notes in my study period next Monday for the week ahead and transfer it to my main document and then do practice questions.

Maths
The week started fine and I had confidence but then when we were doing year two trigonometric identities I kept having to start again - I was ending up in the right place but it was stressing me out that I kept crossing things out so I missed some details from a lesson on compound angle formulae. I need to learn the double angle identities to save time in exams and also would like to consolidate second year trigonometry next week from some textbooks.

Epq
Just a couple more sources to go until I start the dissertation. Yay - as I cannot wait for this to be over.

Random life stuff
Had a driving lesson this week as I said which went ok but I need to get my parents set up on some scheme I registered for and also need to get going with the theory. Did some baking today and made some vegan peanut butter and chocolate cookies with plans for rice noodle tofu stir fry for dinner tomorrow which should be exciting.
I’m going to read a bit of a book by a palliative care doctor and then get to sleep and hope I wake up nice and early feeling less 🤒
Love your choice of bedtime reading! I shall follow your progress this year with interest.
Original post by Scotney
Love your choice of bedtime reading! I shall follow your progress this year with interest.


The book is actually really good and looks at death and dying as a journey and in various levels .
Tiny update:
I feel so ill right now and just hope I’m better by Monday so I can concentrate at college but I’ve got so far behind
Original post by DGeorge13
Tiny update:
I feel so ill right now and just hope I’m better by Monday so I can concentrate at college but I’ve got so far behind

Chill this year is not a sprint but long distance race. You will soon pick up the pace when you are feeling better. Rest up and no stressing. Doctors orders! (bit of poetic license there)
35701A4E-7CF5-48E7-A085-0045E041C712.jpg.jpeg just thought I’d update saying I’ve gotten over my cold and am revising for a bio test on year two content which we have covered 3/11 that of now and so I’m hoping that goes alright
Did my test and it was horrible. My teacher said at the end I know that it’s a challenging test so...
I thought they were going to say they’d give the grade boundaries but they said they were giving us all extra time?

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