UEA vs HYMS

[ywith]

Has anyone received an offer for UEA and HYMS and decided to put UEA as their firm choice? If so, why? I always thought HYMS would be my first choice, but am now doubting this decision. What are the great things about UEA? Thanks for finding the time to reply.

[Dr.Mel]

heya, i know how you feel, i didnt apply to HYMS but i can tell you why i chose UEA:

1. absolutely wonderful people, everyone is just sooo nice, even the people on this forum who have chosen UEA are interesting and lovely to chat to! its a friendly atmosphere, and seen as you will be working in groups it will be important to choose somewhere you feel comfortable and that you know you will get along with the people there, and i definately felt at ease at UEA.

2. early patient contact, well at UEA you get to meet patients very early on (the very first year i believe), and i really am a people's-person, so instead of burying my head in books most of the time (which im sure we will all continue doing) its nice to actually get out their and see why we are doing it and how to relate what we learn theoretically to real life situations (hopefully that made sence).

3. the accodomation is new and fab, i think UEA's rooms are so clean and modern, i could really imagine myslef there. it was just a feeling i had when i went there for an open day, i was just walking around the campus and i really had a warm feeling that i could really live here.

4. brilliant sports centre, i dont know about you, but im a sports fenatic, and UEA has the best sports centre on campus, i will take as much advantage of that as i possibly can.

i dont know if this is much help, but just some positive things i thought might make it easier to make your decision.

hope to see you in september...let us know what you decide!

[Nestea]

hi ywith:

first off, i'm from canada, and on the second trip to England in my life i visited both uea and the york campus to attend an interview for HYMS.

i got offers to both but i chose to UEA as my firm and declined hyms. i have to agree with Armin all the points she's got i would definately repeat, but i will add some stuff.

1. wen i went there i had a one on one tour and my tourguide's a med student and she was great and i got the feeling that the whole student body is very welcoming and friendly.

but it's not like wen i went to york they weren't the same way! having that personal UEA tour influenced my decision a lot. we didn't have much of a tour at york and i didn't get many questions answered (mostly because we were in such a big group)

2. my guide said she had patient contact on the fourth day.. it's the earliest i've heard of any med school

3. both accommodations are new and nice. i didn't personally see a room at UEA but i get an idea from pics. i saw a room at york it was pretty nice, probably about the same high quality as UEA.

4. they do have the reputed "best" sports facility in the uk. but use ur own judgement. of course if ur into sports and keeping fit etc then it'll definately be of use to u. i unfortunately didn't see the sports facility at york.

other things:

one thing that puts me off the joint uni's (pms, hyms are the ones i applied to) is that u don't know which campus ur going to end up at! they tell u after u make it ur firm i think. since i only visited plymouth and york i was unable to compare exeter and hull. so u could end up at a place where u've never seen! don't know about ur situation but i wouldn't want that. and after visiting UEA u see everything.. there's no surprises and it's also a very beautiful campus. but so is york, i like the water at both universities

the food is pretty good at both UEA and york. i had breakfast at UEA and it was good. i had lunch at york (fish and chips) ... it was amazing, but then again fish and chips is amazing all around the uk.. u English are probably all used to it by now so u must think i'm crazy going nuts over fish and chips.

my guide also told me that the medics at UEA are really close, and this i think is unique to UEA: the medics have their own teams and they compete against other departments (like history for example) in friendly competition. i like the idea of being able to know all the other medics, not just half (i really didn't think i'd be going out of my way to meet med students in the same program but at a different campus an hour+ away)

program-wise both uni's are pretty much the same.. a lot of pbl, a lot of patient contact. i'm not sure if UEA has intercalated, but HYMS does for sure, and UEA doesn't have the "integrated spiral curriculum" and HYMS does

when it came down to it, i chose UEA as my firm because when i pictured myself at university i couldn't see myself anywhere else! hope this helps