work experience for medicine

Original post by omeleto63

im in y12 and im starting to look into work experience/volunteering - anyhting to get into medicine. so far i:
volunteer at a local mosque and teach children arabic twice a week (ill be doing this long term)
privately tutor a neurologically disabled child in maths,literacy once a week(hes in y7 so i do a bit of everything, and again long term)
im looking for a volunteering placement at a care home (this will also be longterm)
ill also be doing work experience at a hospital later on, itll be easy for me to find as i do have contacts and im also looking into gp shadowing as i have contacts for that (if anyone knows how many hours i should do of that, thatll help a lot)
i also will start doing peer mentoring in school - either subject tutoring, or literacy aid for younger students
as well as that i might be going to some medical conferences later on
i really want to get into imperial so im trying to hit all their requiremnets, but i dont do any extracurriculars and i dont know if thatll bring down my application. for gcses i got 999887766 (9s in double science 7 in maths 6 in eng lang - idk if i got the math or english requiremnt). and alevels im aiming for a-a* and im taking bio,chem,psych,eng lit (my school make us do 4 then drop one in october). however i do know that ill need to get a really good ucat aswell. if anyone has any advice about anything more i should do to really get in thatll help so much!

I think you are in danger of burn-out and neglecting your A levels. Don't take on peer mentoring you are already helping students in other contexts ... the care home placement is more important

Why Imperial btw? Do they state their GCSE requirements on the website?

Reply 3

Definitely don’t burn yourself out, you still have a lot of time. You should be focusing now on ensuring you’re caught up with all your subjects and ensuring grades A*-A and B minimum on all your in class exams and mocks. This will help to ensure that by the end of the year you aren’t worrying about 1) catching up on work and 2) trying to get your grades up for med. your summer should be used to do extracurricular and super curriculars and any work experience.

I’d also recommend reading some books for your personal statement to prove you actually have done further ready which proves your genuine interest.

Reply 4

Original post by Muttley79

I think you are in danger of burn-out and neglecting your A levels. Don't take on peer mentoring you are already helping students in other contexts ... the care home placement is more important
Why Imperial btw? Do they state their GCSE requirements on the website?

the peer mentoring thing is something i would do during tutor time for 20mins once a week, its not much time and its during skl hours. in terms of everything else, if people have time to hang out and jobs and stuff wouldnt i have enough time for this. im not saying it to be rude and i know its a lot but once i drop my fourth ill have 9 more hours per fortnight.

honestly idk why but in like y8 i just became obsessed w imperial and now ive kinda stuck with it lol. they do say gcse requirements but its so vague that i rlly dk if ive done enough or doing enough yk. i was rlly lazy w my gcses n crammed all my revision during exam season so im trying to avoid that rn but now im worried that bc i didnt revise well and get better grades itll seriously dffect my application

Reply 5

Original post by e.rahm

Definitely don’t burn yourself out, you still have a lot of time. You should be focusing now on ensuring you’re caught up with all your subjects and ensuring grades A*-A and B minimum on all your in class exams and mocks. This will help to ensure that by the end of the year you aren’t worrying about 1) catching up on work and 2) trying to get your grades up for med. your summer should be used to do extracurricular and super curriculars and any work experience.
I’d also recommend reading some books for your personal statement to prove you actually have done further ready which proves your genuine interest.

isnt my summer meant to be for ucat? and plus most summers i go abroad to visit family so idk if ill go or stay so i just want to be safe. plus ill drop all of these by the end of the school year so y13 is only for school. ty for the advice on reading btw! do u have any recs?

Reply 6

Original post by omeleto63

I think you are totally underestimating appplying for medicine .. you can't drop everything in Year 13. 'Long-term' means that ...

When are you doing the shadowing you talk about?

Reply 7

Original post by omeleto63

Yeah summer for ucat but you should also try to read ahead in all your subjects - summer goes by really quick. And ofc keep doing past paper questions over summer. Sorry, I don’t know any med book recommendation - not a med applicant!

Reply 8

Original post by Muttley79

I think you are totally underestimating appplying for medicine .. you can't drop everything in Year 13. 'Long-term' means that ...
When are you doing the shadowing you talk about?

long term means like over 3 months, i hope to do like 6 months at least in everything, then drop the private tutoring, and either the care home or mosque and continue the peer mentoring. then over summer ill focus on ucat and revsion and by the beginning of y13 ill have to send my application in anyways as med schools open early so why would it matter to my application whether i dropped some of my jobs? either way id like to drop some jobs before my as mocks and over summer ill be abroad so i wont be available for most of them. so from here till as comes around will be like 8/9 months which would be enough experience right?

im not sure about the gp shadowing as i havent asked yet, but i hope to do it soon (hopefully about a week of that) . the hospital work is something that i can do whenever and for as much time so ill probably do more of that (i hope at least 2 or 3 weeks)

Reply 9

Original post by e.rahm

ok ty for the advice !!

Reply 10

Original post by omeleto63

ok ty for the advice !!

no worries

Reply 11

Original post by omeleto63

long term means like over 3 months, i hope to do like 6 months at least in everything, then drop the private tutoring, and either the care home or mosque and continue the peer mentoring. then over summer ill focus on ucat and revsion and by the beginning of y13 ill have to send my application in anyways as med schools open early so why would it matter to my application whether i dropped some of my jobs? either way id like to drop some jobs before my as mocks and over summer ill be abroad so i wont be available for most of them. so from here till as comes around will be like 8/9 months which would be enough experience right?
im not sure about the gp shadowing as i havent asked yet, but i hope to do it soon (hopefully about a week of that) . the hospital work is something that i can do whenever and for as much time so ill probably do more of that (i hope at least 2 or 3 weeks)

Long term means at least a year in my book ... speak to your school as I think fewer things done for longer would be better

Reply 12

Original post by Muttley79

Long term means at least a year in my book ... speak to your school as I think fewer things done for longer would be better

i dont think ill have time to do that much. and ive heard of people that have done less and got in. how much did you do?

(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 13

Original post by omeleto63

i dont think ill have time to do that much. and ive heard of people that have done less and got in. how much did you do?

I'm a teacher so have seen lots of students off to uni for medicine.

Reply 14

Original post by omeleto63

i dont think ill have time to do that much. and ive heard of people that have done less and got in. how much did you do?

I say, still maintain some work experience throughout y13 but not as much as you have now in y12.

Reply 15

Mr_Pizza

Original post by Muttley79

I'm a teacher so have seen lots of students off to uni for medicine.

Oh! In that case, would you recommend I do volunteering in a care home or work at a pharmacy?

Reply 16