The Student Room Group

Imperial Medical Biosciences Improvements?

Hey, can anyone who has joined the course recently shed light on their experience? I know it's a very new course and I've seen people writing about the e-modules being insufficient and having mistakes, lecturers not answering questions on forums, face to face sessions being useless, and more. I've always preferred independent learning so the flipped learning technique appealed to me, but I would certainly like to have professionals in the school that I can rely on for help. Has the university actually taken the negative feedback on board or are these problems still there?

Imperial is a wonderful university in a great location with a good reputation and I would really like to go there, but if the course is lackluster then I should maybe choose somewhere else... please help!

Reply 1

Original post by shiv-04
Hey, can anyone who has joined the course recently shed light on their experience? I know it's a very new course and I've seen people writing about the e-modules being insufficient and having mistakes, lecturers not answering questions on forums, face to face sessions being useless, and more. I've always preferred independent learning so the flipped learning technique appealed to me, but I would certainly like to have professionals in the school that I can rely on for help. Has the university actually taken the negative feedback on board or are these problems still there?
Imperial is a wonderful university in a great location with a good reputation and I would really like to go there, but if the course is lackluster then I should maybe choose somewhere else... please help!

Hello, I realise it has been 2 years since your post, but I would be curious to know what you decided yo do and if you ever got any clarification on your questions.
Thank you.

Reply 2

Hey, I'm sorry I'm just seeing this now when I realise it would have been a lot more helpful to reply 5 months ago! But I will leave this reply in case you are still curious (and to help anyone else reading).
I ended up doing the course and I'm currently in 2nd year. I actually had a good experience in first year and found that the learning style worked for me. I'm not really a lecture person, so I did like that we got to go through the content by ourselves in our own time and then consolidate the knowledge in the face-to-face (F2F). During term time, responses from teachers on the forums can be very slow/not come at all (depending on which module and lecturer it is) but students can answer each others' questions which is really good and happens a lot. If you have any burning questions after reading the eModule, you can just write it down and remember to ask it to one of the teachers in class.
As for the eModules themselves, I didn't really find them insufficient -- I think what people were referring to was that sometimes, some new content is introduced during the face to face, which you then had to add to your notes? It's usually not too bad though, and quite manageable -- make sure to take notes in the F2F. Some eModules did have lots of grammar mistakes when done by non-native English speakers, but that's something that you'll probably encounter in every UK uni course tbh.
F2F sessions are honestly kind of fun. They last for 3 hours. You basically sit in a group of 5-6, and you have 10 minutes to answer 10 questions based on the eModule by yourself. After that, you have 10 minutes to answer the same question as a group -- this is where you really consolidate what you've learned and you have the opportunity to teach/be taught by fellow coursemates. After this, we go over those 10 questions as a class, with the lecturer clarifying and explaining each of them. We then have a break and come back, and then we have 2-3 application questions which are kind of like exam data interpretation style. Maybe the course improved a bit for my cohort, but I think the reviews I saw were a bit too negative. Hope that helps!

Reply 3

Original post by Anonymous
Hey, I'm sorry I'm just seeing this now when I realise it would have been a lot more helpful to reply 5 months ago! But I will leave this reply in case you are still curious (and to help anyone else reading).
I ended up doing the course and I'm currently in 2nd year. I actually had a good experience in first year and found that the learning style worked for me. I'm not really a lecture person, so I did like that we got to go through the content by ourselves in our own time and then consolidate the knowledge in the face-to-face (F2F). During term time, responses from teachers on the forums can be very slow/not come at all (depending on which module and lecturer it is) but students can answer each others' questions which is really good and happens a lot. If you have any burning questions after reading the eModule, you can just write it down and remember to ask it to one of the teachers in class.
As for the eModules themselves, I didn't really find them insufficient -- I think what people were referring to was that sometimes, some new content is introduced during the face to face, which you then had to add to your notes? It's usually not too bad though, and quite manageable -- make sure to take notes in the F2F. Some eModules did have lots of grammar mistakes when done by non-native English speakers, but that's something that you'll probably encounter in every UK uni course tbh.
F2F sessions are honestly kind of fun. They last for 3 hours. You basically sit in a group of 5-6, and you have 10 minutes to answer 10 questions based on the eModule by yourself. After that, you have 10 minutes to answer the same question as a group -- this is where you really consolidate what you've learned and you have the opportunity to teach/be taught by fellow coursemates. After this, we go over those 10 questions as a class, with the lecturer clarifying and explaining each of them. We then have a break and come back, and then we have 2-3 application questions which are kind of like exam data interpretation style. Maybe the course improved a bit for my cohort, but I think the reviews I saw were a bit too negative. Hope that helps!

(Posted anonymously by mistake oops)

Reply 4

Hi, I've also been wondering about this course! I don’t know if this is the best place to ask but I’ll give it a shot anyway. I’m a current offer holder, however I am just wondering more about life outside the medical biosciences course? Is it harder to get to know people since you spend less time face to face/spend time in set groups? Also, how is the social life at Imperial in general as a medical biosciences student? Thanks for whoever posted/answered the original question on here because I found it really helpful!

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