Your views on St Andrews

[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. St Andrews 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 St Andrews? 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 St Andrews??

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

Any advice would be appreciated....cheers

- Darren

[silverspoon]

Hi Darren,

As a graduate you will need to show off your skills gained during your previous academic study. Also, being a little older you might want to show that you are able to work with people of all ages and backgrounds.

St Andrews is fairly good when it comes to mature students; I am one, and there are about 10 in each yearly intake so not a bad percentage (average intake is between 150-170).

Regarding the course itself, I am totally bias but I feel that I have had a very good grounding in the first year with a good mix of science topics and clinical skills with a dabble into ethics, public health and clinical reasoning. There is a strong focus on anatomy teaching if this is your cup of tea so be prepared to work more on other aspects (e.g. cell bio and biochem) to stay on top of things.

The course has had a major re-haul over the last few years and now is regarded as being up there with the best pre-clinical teaching in the country. There is also a new medical school being built overlooking St Andrews bay and the infamous golf course and beach so you will be being taught in a state of the art teaching faculty if you decided to start in 2010.

The town is very small (18,000 inhabitants INCLUDING all the students!) so there is a very strong feeling of community, especially within the medical school, and be prepared to know all staff by name and vice versa!

The uni has very short academic terms so this may be good if you want to return "home" over the summer to work or whatever.

My take home message would be, if you like a traditional course with some very modern aspects where needed and want to live in a very studenty town with a good spirit, then it's the place for you. At interview act like you have already made up your mind that it's the place for you and be yourself, that's what I did and I got in.

Best of luck.