Your views on Aberdeen

[doctors-do-it-better]

Hey Guys

Okay as a graduate applicant for 2010 entry I am at the stage where I need to seriously narrow down my choices of potential Uni's to apply to. Aberdeen is one of those potential Uni's.

To all those current students out there could you please provide me with your perspective of the course? What did you like best about Aberdeen? Anything you didn't like about the course? Do you like the style of the course? What is first year actually like - anyone have a typical example of a day at Aberdeen??

If you could offer one sound part of advice for applying to Aberdeen what would it be?

Any advice would be appreciated....cheers

- Darren

[Aitch]

The course has been revamped so to speak, so the current years have not experienced it and fingers crossed the September batch, if they make it, shall be the ones to tell you.

[Kensei]

Hey Darren,

Just repeating what Aitch said above.. we won't be able to provide you with any info on a 'typical day'.. BUT - 2008 entry medics were exposed to a 'hybrid' programme which was a mix of the old and the new ideas the school will start introducing in 2009, so we're not completely clueless in this matter

I'm loving the course, it has everything I hoped for, a fair amount of workload and the main lecturers (Prof Cotter, Prof Long and Dr Davies) are really helpful people who make some extremely boring concepts quite easy to assimilate. The practical side was well developed (you'll probably get even more practical exposure, since that's the direction the school is taking nowadays). I'm very fond of the teaching system which is heavily reliant upon lectures (they expect you to do at least equal amount of self-study - I guess it depends on an individual, but some people will need to do less while others actually require solid 15+ hrs of home revision) and still leaves some space for problem-based topics (while many schools switched to a full PBL by now.. I don't think that would work well for someone like me).. 6 hours of practical anatomy per week (+ any additional time you wish to spend there in your free time) was also helpful, as you're not expected to learn everything from textbooks and acland's (as is the case in some med schools - it saves money, but *practical* anatomy's crucial, IMO)

What I didn't like about the course was mostly the introduction of Community course and particularly the final exam on that subject. It's a remote module, not based on science at all - and IMO a complete waste of time. The GMC guidelines say every school should have something like that for the students to experience the 'community health environment' in order to understand the out-of-hospital situations and the impact of disease upon everyday lives of patients, but some people will simply have this knowledge from square one, while others (i.e. myself) will be particularly resistant to some concepts. An example? Imagine that in the exam they sketch a situation of a teen mother (Jane) coming from poorer backgrounds, and you get a question - "Stephen, Jane's boyfriend, never expected that she might get pregnant but now will have to think like an adult. Please give 4 things he'd have to reconsider in his life due to becoming a teenage dad" - for some medics this is obvious and they can do these type of questions for HOURS, while others are struggling hard to make up anything that's sensible. Very random, in my opinion.

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask

Rob

[natamac]

As usual Kensei has given a very useful and complete answer but I will still add in my first year experience.
I love uni and the medical degree here is really interesting. 1st year (for our intake anyway) is mostly basic healthy physiology and anatomy with some bits about common illnesses. The lectures on the whole are very good and explain things well and the anatomy teaching is also excellent.
A typical day would be about 3 hour long lectures with 2 hours of anatomy or a 2 hour break depending on your group and the day, with anatomy tutorials on a friday.
Later in the year is the SSM where you are put into a group based on what subject you are interested in and write a report and do a presentation on it. This was really fun, even if it was hard work while revising. If you work it right you can be in the same group as your friends but I found this was a really good oppotunity to get to know other people on the course better.
Community course is not so fun. It reminded me of general studies A level if you have done that. I can see why they want us to do the tutorials but it is a bit annoying that they take the entire morning over it. The mum and baby visit was a nice part of the course though and if you get on with your group things are made a bit easier. The exam was ridiculous and gave me my lowest CAS score of the year so I am not too happy with the whole community course thing lol.
On the whole Aberdeen is a very friendly uni with some great societies and sports clubs to join. I really like the city too. It's nice when you get used to everything being grey and there is a beach which is always a plus.

[Kensei]

Thanks for filling in the gaps, Natalie xx

[doctors-do-it-better]

Hey guys cheers for the responses

@Kensei cheers for the very thorough insightful post. You sold Aberdeen well. I do like the sound of the "increased practical exposure" which sounds quite good! I also like the fact that the UKCAT is not the be all and end all at Aberdeen, which is always a plus

@natamac..again thanks for posting an informative reply. I am a Scottish applicant so don't have any idea what general studies A level is

Both of you have put down the "community project" which to be honest does sound a bit weird..but from what you have said I do think Aberdeen is def somewhere I would like to apply to......Aitch posted a comment saying that things where changing, what's changing exactly?

Cheers. D

[natamac]

General studies was such a waste of time. We spent 1 hour a week "discussing" current events etc but this mainly ended in people chatting to their friends. The exam was stupid too, just writing essays about global warming and income tax. Not fun.
Even though community course is not that great it is only 1 morning a week between November and March and nearly everyone passes.
Good luck with your application

[Aitch]

So, this community course...is it ACTUALLY like the general studies exam.

Where there is a syllabus but never gets examined on and/or there is no syllabus and there is perhaps not a chance at all to revise for it? Im slightly confuzzled abotu it...

...i was expecting structured lectures and a paper dealing with something taught in those?

[Kensei]

@Aitch

Unfortunately the community course doesnt follow the same scheme as all the other modules, i.e. it is the only exam which doesn't make it clear what's required therefore it is tricky to prepare for it. This isn't to say that it's more challenging than, say, a physiology exam (as Natamac mentioned, nearly everyone passes comm course) - but it is quite blurry in its form.

For example, you might be surprised (just like I was) to find a question in the final exam expecting you to know what are the professions visiting a young mother and her baby in the first months after they move back home from the hospital... or what are the names of the professions which might be able to give advice on diet for the baby to the mum (excluding her physician).. and no, we never received a booklet entitled "useful facts about the people helping out young mums". For me (as a non-UK citizen) such knowledge is not immediately obvious so I lost plenty of points there.

@Darren

The curriculum is changling slightly and the mode of delivery changes more significantly. It's all about making it all more practical, increasing early exposure to patients and integrating systemic teaching of anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, etc... from what I understand, you'll do systems in "one go", as opposed to what we had. For example, our first year was all about a healthy, normal adult body. Therefore we did all the body systems that year, including their physiology and anatomy (+tiny bits of biochem).. we didn't do modules on disease, though some useful examples were given (e.g. in case of diabetes).. Our second year will include going through all those bodily systems again, this time focusing on disease processes.

From 2009, I think it's going to be a single go for each system, i.e. you'll do both healthy and diseased system in one big block (therefore after year 1 you still wouldn't have learned about some systems at all, but those few that you were taught about - you won't have to return to anymore, if you know what I mean). I personally think this new curriculum has potential, because what they'll expect you to learn during pathophysiology will still be easily associated with healthy system physiology - while in our case we need to dig up that knowledge from last year's memory (or, more likely , notes).

[Mabaza_Ritchie]

Ok I havn't read through all the posts so sorry if i repeat anything!

Aberdeen is pretty awesome! I think one of the major plus points is how helpful and friendly the teaching staff are. Incredibly approachable and mostly quite good fun (Cotter is very entertaining!).

Also they very quickly foster a great team spirit and bond us all together. I love it!

The teaching gives you all the info you need and you do ahve time to look into your own interests further. I found that there was room to be creative and imaginative as well as factual.

If you dive in with all your heart you will get a lot out of it!