Access to HE science

Has anyone done an Access to HE science at Nottingham College? What was you're experience like?
Would you rather have done the course via distance learning?
I've been homeschooled my whole life and did my igcse through self-study. TIA

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

22

Original post by Always_anxious99

Has anyone done an Access to HE science at Nottingham College? What was you're experience like?
Would you rather have done the course via distance learning?
I've been homeschooled my whole life and did my igcse through self-study. TIA

I have done Access for science, but not at Nottingham. If this is relevant, let me know.

Personally for science courses, I would rather do it in person because you would want the practical experience of doing lab experiments. Having said that, if it's not viable (or too expensive depending on your circusmtances/status), then distance learning is the next best thing.

If you haven't done A Levels or Access before, can you confirm why you're not opting to do A Levels in the sciences instead?

Well done on doing your iGCSEs through self study. I done a lot of self study and I can say it's not easy.

I would also add what you would intend to do after Access or what you intend to do as a career? Picking any qualification that won't help you get where you want to go can be a waste of time as well as money, as well as requiring you to go back to do further qualifications for what you actually want to do.

Reply 2

Always_anxious99

OP

2

Original post by MindMax2000

I have done Access for science, but not at Nottingham. If this is relevant, let me know.

Personally for science courses, I would rather do it in person because you would want the practical experience of doing lab experiments. Having said that, if it's not viable (or too expensive depending on your circusmtances/status), then distance learning is the next best thing.

If you haven't done A Levels or Access before, can you confirm why you're not opting to do A Levels in the sciences instead?

Well done on doing your iGCSEs through self study. I done a lot of self study and I can say it's not easy.

I would also add what you would intend to do after Access or what you intend to do as a career? Picking any qualification that won't help you get where you want to go can be a waste of time as well as money, as well as requiring you to go back to do further qualifications for what you actually want to do.

Thank you so much for such a polite reply.
I feel like the Access course would be a better fit as there are no exams and its over a shorter time. I'm still waiting for my iGCSE results and I hope I get the grades I need, if I just pass with 4/5 I can do the Access course. Whereas if I did A levels I'd need to get 6 or more in sciences and if I didn't then waste another 7+ months retaking the igcses.

Also Idk if I can commit to 2 full years of study as well as the fact that I'll have to pay out of pocket for A Levels and its not cheap at all. Looking at £9000 upwards for in person college. Or £2000 distance learning but without practical endorsement.

I wanted to go into pharmacy or dentistry for as long as I can remember but its become so difficult to get in even with Alevels. And frankly I've reached a point of totall confusion/exhaustion of what I'm going to do with HE.

So I think its going to help me narrow down my options so I'll have to pick something.
So I'm going to do the Access and see where it goes I'm finding biomedical science quite appealing.
I'm going to be 22 next month so I'm going to have to start moving faster to get on track 😅

Sorry about the long reply.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 3

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

22

Original post by Always_anxious99

Thank you so much for such a polite reply.
I feel like the Access course would be a better fit as there are no exams and its over a shorter time. I'm still waiting for my iGCSE results and I hope I get the grades I need, if I just pass with 4/5 I can do the Access course. Whereas if I did A levels I'd need to get 6 or more in sciences and if I didn't then waste another 7+ months retaking the igcses.

Also Idk if I can commit to 2 full years of study as well as the fact that I'll have to pay out of pocket for A Levels and its not cheap at all. Looking at £9000 upwards for in person college. Or £2000 distance learning but without practical endorsement.

I wanted to go into pharmacy or dentistry for as long as I can remember but its become so difficult to get in even with Alevels. And frankly I've reached a point of totall confusion/exhaustion of what I'm going to do with HE.

So I think its going to help me narrow down my options so I'll have to pick something.
So I'm going to do the Access and see where it goes I'm finding biomedical science quite appealing.
I'm going to be 22 next month so I'm going to have to start moving faster to get on track 😅

Sorry about the long reply.

I'm going to have to drop a few harsh truths that you will likely need to hear.

I feel like the Access course would be a better fit as there are no exams and its over a shorter time.
If that's what you want, then yeah Access is a better fit. As you're over 19, you should be fine doing this in most offline colleges, but you can always do them long distance. Again, I prefer the offline Access courses for science because you get the lab experience.
For your purposes, I would double check that the specific Access course that you would be doing has at least 15 credits in biology (substitute for A Level Biology) and 15 in chemistry (substitute for A Level chemistry) so you can progress onto the life science degrees that you want. Most science based Access courses should meet this criteria, but there might be a chance that some don't, so I would check just to be sure.

Whereas if I did A levels I'd need to get 6 or more in sciences and if I didn't then waste another 7+ months retaking the igcses.
This would depend on the specific college. Technically, exam boards don't require you to have specific grades in order to do the A Levels. The grade requirements are set by the individual colleges (for reasons beyond me).
If you want to do the A Levels as a private candidate, you can but it will cost quite a bit for the practical assessments for biology and chemistry.

Also Idk if I can commit to 2 full years of study as well as the fact that I'll have to pay out of pocket for A Levels and its not cheap at all. Looking at £9000 upwards for in person college. Or £2000 distance learning but without practical endorsement.
If you have not done a Level 3 qualification and you're a UK citizen, have you looked into Student Finance? You can sometimes get the Advanced Learner's Loan which would fund your costs (although you would have to pay it back) for A Levels if you can find an offline college that accept 19+ for their courses local to you.
Access courses allow you to go straight into the degree without needing to pay the loan for Access back if:

•

You haven't done a Level 3 qualification before

•

You go straight into uni the very next year

You can't typically fund online college courses with Advanced Learner Loans unless the college is a recognised and approved further education institution (I forgot what sort of qualification the college needs to have, but there's a national registered list for it on the government's website).

I wanted to go into pharmacy or dentistry for as long as I can remember but its become so difficult to get in even with Alevels. And frankly I've reached a point of totall confusion/exhaustion of what I'm going to do with HE.
Have you looked into the entry requirements for accredited pharmacy and dentistry degrees (don't take the unaccredited ones if you intend to work in pharmacy or dentistry)? They tend not to accept Access and only accept A Levels or IB (I struggle to find a place that offers IB to people 19+). They are competitive (more dentistry than pharmacy) and they tend to be difficult degrees. If you happen to find a course that accepts Access, great. A majority of them to my knowledge won't.

So I'm going to do the Access and see where it goes I'm finding biomedical science quite appealing.
A majority of biomed degrees accept Access, so I think you're fine there. The courses I would be a bit more wary about are those from top end unis, where they can be a bit more picky e.g. does not accept, or does accept Access along with A Level biology/chemistry. I would check just to be sure.
If you intend to work for the NHS and go onto their STP program, you would want to make sure the degree is IBMS accredited. If it's not, then it's only good for academic research if you intend to stay in biomed. Having said that, a biomed degree would allow you to pivot into other areas of life sciences should you feel that's where you want to be.

I'm going to be 22 next month so I'm going to have to start moving faster to get on track.
If you want a long satisfying career, then yes you should really move faster. However, many people change their careers at various points in their lives (I have seen people who went back to uni at 50-60), so it's not like it's the end of the world if you don't do it later in life.
Any career will require a lot of time to build up years of experience, and might need 5+ years to be considered for a promotion or even tenure.
If you go into something and you find that it's your calling/you don't want to leave, then yeah get there as fast as you can.

Good luck on your results.

Reply 4

John Eva smith

10

Hi, i will start the access to HE science (bio and chem) course in September and was wondering if anyone could tell me what the assignments are like (some examples would be great). Also how is this access course compared to alevels?
Thanks

Access to HE science

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