Oxford Demystified - Biochemistry

This is so helpful! Looking at chemistry myself but some of the work experience placements/summer schools will be perfect. Do you know anymore you can recommend?

I’m glad it was helpful!

I’ve had friends who’ve gotten work experience placements simply by contacting the researchers themselves at their local uni, if you go on your local uni website and find the chemistry department you’ll be able to see researchers, their fields and their emails - contact a few if you’re interested in their fields and explain your background (sixth form, your subjects, what you want to do at uni etc) and that you’d love an opportunity to do a week long placement in their lab if possible. Most researchers my friends contacted seemed to prefer 3 day placements but that was still fine! Don’t be disheartened if they don’t reply to you at all, they’re very busy and often ignore non-urgent emails, but those who do reply will usually love to have you there. You might want to wait a while until you do any of this because of coronavirus (obviously), maybe contact them once the situation starts to calm down because right now they won’t know their schedules.

Many universities will have summer schools (you can usually find them on their website or just by searching up year 12 summer school (insert uni here)) and some do them through a larger network like Sutton Trust (I got a place on a summer school for Molecular Bioengineering at Imperial but I turned it down for the nuffield placement instead) - however a lot of these properly organised events like summer work experience programmes and summer schools have been cancelled in light of the pandemic so I’d recommend contacting researchers directly in a few weeks/months is your best bet!!! (Most summer school deadlines will have passed already as well if you’re planning to do them this year - I assumed you’re in year 12 - my apologies if not!)

If you’re not (eg year 11), many individual oxbridge colleges also run summer schools in specific subjects if you look hard enough on the internet, that you may be able to take part in next summer or Easter holidays for example. I attended a summer school at Selwyn College, Cambridge in the summer after year 11 and loved it

This is so helpful! Looking at chemistry myself but some of the work experience placements/summer schools will be perfect. Do you know anymore you can recommend?

I’m glad it was helpful!

I’ve had friends who’ve gotten work experience placements simply by contacting the researchers themselves at their local uni, if you go on your local uni website and find the chemistry department you’ll be able to see researchers, their fields and their emails - contact a few if you’re interested in their fields and explain your background (sixth form, your subjects, what you want to do at uni etc) and that you’d love an opportunity to do a week long placement in their lab if possible. Most researchers my friends contacted seemed to prefer 3 day placements but that was still fine! Don’t be disheartened if they don’t reply to you at all, they’re very busy and often ignore non-urgent emails, but those who do reply will usually love to have you there. You might want to wait a while until you do any of this because of coronavirus (obviously), maybe contact them once the situation starts to calm down because right now they won’t know their schedules.

Many universities will have summer schools (you can usually find them on their website or just by searching up year 12 summer school (insert uni here)) and some do them through a larger network like Sutton Trust (I got a place on a summer school for Molecular Bioengineering at Imperial but I turned it down for the nuffield placement instead) - however a lot of these properly organised events like summer work experience programmes and summer schools have been cancelled in light of the pandemic so I’d recommend contacting researchers directly in a few weeks/months is your best bet!!! (Most summer school deadlines will have passed already as well if you’re planning to do them this year - I assumed you’re in year 12 - my apologies if not!)

If you’re not (eg year 11), many individual oxbridge colleges also run summer schools in specific subjects if you look hard enough on the internet, that you may be able to take part in next summer or Easter holidays for example. I attended a summer school at Selwyn College, Cambridge in the summer after year 11 and loved it

Hi Apolaroidofus!

Have you seen the new Chemistry chapter on Oxford Demystified, by Skywalker61? I am sure you will find it very useful. See link below:

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6431812

I think I recall he/she mentioned work experience

hello...I'm shaheen from Pakistan and I wanna study physics...can u tell me...

Thank you guys both so much! I'm actually in year 10 but I've started to look out for opportunities now because I'm terrified I'll miss a deadline for something that I didn't know existed and wish I'd done it (happened this year with a couple of things so I'm going to have to sacrifice the holiday after GCSEs)! Especially due to the virus meaning that my only work experience (biomedical technician in a hospital so not directly related but still somewhat useful) will most likely get cancelled Anything I can get under my belt now is a plus!

hello...I'm shaheen from Pakistan and I wanna study physics...can u tell me...

Diamantes, there is one thing that really stood out from your chapter. That is all the schemes available to state school students.

Oxford seems to have a hard time recruiting black students. You might have given us a clue when you said during the interviews you were worried that you would be the only black person at the college. Luckily you were not deterred from applying. Oxford is keen to welcome black students.

You mentioned a scheme called Target Oxbridge. This is specifically to help black students

https://targetoxbridge.co.uk/

It is free to apply, and Oxbridge spend £1,250 per student to help them with their application. You will get a mentor who is a current black student at Oxford or Cambridge and guidance on applying. Although many students on this scheme are successful with their applications, you can still get in without it. I would suggest you apply anyway (and by this, I mean to Target Oxbridge and Oxford)

If you wonder what Oxford is like for black students, may I introduce you to two heroes of mine, Vee Kativhu (or Miss Varz) and Josh Tulloch, both graduates of Lady Margaret Hall. Miss Varz is a passionate believer that black students should not be put off applying to Oxford. Please see her beautiful youtube video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7825sbb907I

Now let's watch Vee and Josh having fun at their college. There's also a beautiful clip of the ACS (African and Caribbean Society) at a formal dinner in Magdalen college.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfll3Sh8GBA

They demonstrate how easy it was for them to fit in with other students, from all kinds of different backgrounds.

I love the line where Vee sits at the piano and says "You'll love it, I promise!"

There is a whole series of wonderful youtube videos by Miss Varz, but I want to end with my favourite, "Josh and Vee's make up challenge".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t5cccc1jjs

Vee Kativhu is an icon - her youtube channel definitely helped me massively in feeling assured in myself. She is an incredibly inspiring person for everyone!

I think the main benefit of Target Oxbridge is the confidence it gives you in applying to Oxbridge, not necessarily that it's improved your academic capabilities, having a mentor who's currently studying or has graduated from your desired subject at your desired university is amazing as you can talk to them about their experiences and how they found their interviews and their degree. She gave me a few mock interviews over the phone which despite ending up having nearly no relevance to what my actual interviews were like the end, made me feel much more comfortable about the whole process than I otherwise would have been - I definitely recommend it

Oh that's amazing then! You probably won't be able to do much this summer but as for the rest of your school time (off the top of my head):

In the summer after year 11, UCL run a summer school and so do many Cambridge colleges - eg Selwyn College (I assume some Oxford ones too but I didn't look at them at the time). Imperial have a STEM year 11 summer school in early July as well.
In the January/February of year 12, Cambridge's Student Union run a shadowing scheme where you still in college and shadow someone who studies the subject you want to study for 3 days, including their lectures and labs (I'm not share about tutorials - it would depend on their tutor), but for example I stayed at Peterhouse shadowing a Biological Natural Sciences student. I enjoyed this trip even if it was when I decided on Oxford over Cambridge haha.
(Depending on your gender) In March of year 12, Newnham College, Cambridge run a Women in STEM conference (can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier!), when I went it was all about the pros and cons of plastic usage. I never had the space to mention this in my personal statement or teacher reference but I loved the conference so much! We got to take part in study groups and speak to leaders in their fields about how they use plastic and learn about the chemistry behind plastics and conclude with debates on Plastic: Friend or Foe. They change their focus every year and it was an amazing experience.
In the Easter holidays of year 12, more Cambridge colleges run some "summer" school like programmes, the CanBridge residential for example & schemes like Target Oxbridge run their residential trips to the universities.
In the summer after year 12, the amazing UNIQ Summer School and the Sutton Trust summer schools (for Cambridge and like 20 other reputable universities) occur which I definitely suggest taking part in if you can. Imperial run their work experience week during this time (mid-July). Oxbridge colleges will also run more summer schools in this time, including Wadham College, Oxford (last time was biology focused) & Trinity College, Cambridge (a Women in STEM residential).

That's all I can currently remember, hopefully that helps out with ideas of things you could do in the future!!!

There is one important thing to bear in mind - confidence.

Black students are just as clever as other races. However, one very sad statistic I heard was that 1 in 3 black students who receive an offer from Oxford turn it down. And fewer black students apply than Oxford would like.

As Vee points out, the more black students who apply and get in, the more common it will be for talented black students to choose Oxford. And then there will be no problem.