Cambridge or Imperial?

[Krieg]

Cambridge is a little more intensive than Imperial would be, given the condensed terms. You get long holidays but you will still be worked to death. The city seemed pretty intimate if a little dull (major contrast to London), but whichever you'd prefer in that respect is down to your tastes. Can't be bored at Imperial though, it's in London, and there's something for everyone. Cambridge's course is a lot more research-orientated than Imperial, and if that's what you want to do later on, then go for Cambridge, but considering them both on the merits of their reputation is stupid, especially given how little it's worth within medicine, it doesn't reflect on the competence of one doctor compared to another from a different medical school. You can boast to people that you're a Cambridge doctor (whereas most people won't even have heard about Imperial) but that's about it.

And I'm not sure whether you can really go from Imperial to Cambridge - you do your intercalated degree in the 4th year, would you have to skip the third year, do your iBSc and apply to the Cambridge clinical school? =S I don't really see the point of transferring from Imperial to Cambridge, personally, but whatever you're after, go for it...

[Pammy]

It just comes down to personal preferences really. I would have hated, absolutely hated, to live in London as an undergrad! I really valued having my friends, the department, the libraries, the orchestra rehearsals, my running route all within 5-10 min cycling distance from my doorstep...I guess if you're much into going out, clubbing etc you might value London more. I would have quite liked having the chance to e.g. learn an exotic language at SOAS, have some more varied volunteer opportunities and sometimes just have it easier to "get out", but still, for me the disadvantages would have way outweighed the advantages...

[erndog laShang]

I think I prefer Cambridge to imperial because i like the quiteness and the student town atmosphere. I would like to do my clinical in london because the hospitals are alot busier so you get to see more.
For me cambridge doesn't seem like a bad place with its long holidays and traditional enviroment.
Also I think oxbridge has better connections with American unis (princeton, harvard) so if you are thinking about working in the states, may be oxbridge can open a few doors

[Pammy]

I am not sure that's true. Other than the Cambridge-MIT exchange for undergrads, I can't think of any formal exchange programmes to the US.
Imperial has many links to US unis...for their engineers, they have a lot of year-abroad programmes at e.g. MIT, Berkeley, UCSD...
Last year an Imperial medic won one of the Kennedy scholarships to study at Harvard for a year (I read it on their webpage when I was exploring the various courses to decide where to apply...).
In any case, as with everything, it comes down to your own initiative. I spent a summer as an undergrad doing research in a lab at Harvard Medical School but that was not because Oxford has links with Harvard but simply because I applied to a particular research group who happened to have a space for a summer student. There were summer students from many countries and unis; none of the ones I met (besides their own undergrads...) had any formal links there! The only thing they had in common was enthusiasm and good grades...I had a good time, but I don't think I'd want to work there for any longer. Sooooo competitive!

[adi]

Oxford do have a formalised Oxford-Princeton student exchange programme as well.... Only set up in 2003, but going strong from what I hear...

But most opportunities (Kennedy scholarship included or less formal applying to do electives or labwork individually), you can apply for from whichever university you're at.

[Pammy]

Oh I didn't know that! 2003 was after my time :-)
Though I wouldn't have been interested anyway, I have to say. I'm glad I got the American uni experience out of my system since there is no way I would spend my elective over there, seeing we have the entire world with so many exciting countries open to us then :-)

[adi]

Me too, Pammy! I went to Princeton for a semester of my undergrad, and while it was fun now I'm mainly trying to work out whether learning to speak arabic or mandarin would be more useful depending on elective countries I might choose - very exciting!!

[rali]

Wow - that's a little harsh! Are we to equally presume from your post that being judgemental and generalising excessively is "what people at Imperial are like"? No, because that would be falling prey to the same argumentative flaw, but still - your comment's a little bit extreme, don't you think?!

duuuuuuuuuude

[splatman007]

Right, I have been following this thread with interest. I may be a tad late in replying but nevertheless, here are my two cents:

I myself am at Imperial, 5 years on from your stage. All going to plan, I graduate in 2009. My advice would be go to Cambridge. No question. There are several reasons for this.

I have a lot of friends at other medical schools namely Oxbridge and the London colleges and from my own experience, the Cambridge system of supervisions is unrivalled. Their course may be more intensive but the way they teach you to think from first principles, is exactly what you need as an 18 year old. Many may think I sound like a nut job, but having been at ICSM for nearly 5 years, I find this to be a major flaw in teaching methods at large medical schools. We had tutorials (10 people)/anatomy dissection etc... all the things you'd expect from a traditional medical school but you'll find that you will tend to float around. We got no exam practice, save for one exam after xmas which most people fail (85% in my now infamous 1st year of 2003-4). Our year comprised 340 people initially - I still don't know several of them. There was little unity between students and lecturers - a fact greatly lamented by current Profs/senior lecturers who are Imperial alumni (albeit by default from the various constituent colleges i.e. Charing Cross, Westminster, St. Mary's). Unless you are 17 stone of muscle and play for Saracens on the weekend (no joke there are actually some people like this), you will not have that feel of a traditional medical school. I know that even at UCL, you are well looked after in your pre-clinical years.

Having said all of that, clinical teaching is likely to be similar wherever you go - largely dependent on your consultant and registrars and how much bedside teaching they intend to give you. I would say that London is the place to come to for clinicals - simply for the numbers of patients and the breadth of cases as well as experiencing something outside the Cambridge bubble. I can't complain about my BSc year teaching nor my clinical teaching! I would say, do your pre-clinicals at Cambridge but come to London for your clinicals, wherever that may be.

And note a further point - you CANNOT transfer to Oxbridge from Imperial to do clinicals. Why? Well, Imperial, unlike most sane institutions make everybody intercalate after their 1st clinical year (i.e. in year 4) as opposed to after 2 years of pre-clinicals. If you go to UCL or GKT where you can intercalate in your 3rd year (i.e. immediately after your pre-clinicals) then moving to Oxbridge is certainly possible.

Hope that helps!

[sbailey]

Thought I'd just correct a post Gizmo made earlier. Although it was nice to see him defending Cambridge for once, the info he dredged up was about the Cambridge clinical course, not the preclinical course. It's an easy mistake to make, but when it refers to Year 1 it actually refers to Year 4 of the whole course. There is indeed very little patient contact during preclinical, although the clinical school are keen to change that. There is a patient thread in each year of the preclinical course, but it is quite minor in comparison to all the science flying in your face at 100mph. I do think this is a bit of a failing of the Cambridge course, but at the same time I really don't see how they could fit much more in, because the course is absolutely jam-packed as it is. Given the choice, I'd still apply to Cambridge again. (I'm at Oxford for clinicals now, which I'd also recommend. )