Making the most of your BSc Jessica Martin, final year

Part B Notebank Past paper bank – some repeats Extra reading Make plans Practise timing Extra reading Name drop! Collaborate Be tactical Learn the lectures of the course leaders There are notes from older years on notebank. Most lectures aren’t panopto’d! Past paper bank on facebook – repeated questions, although not as reliably as other exams at ICSM. Still very useful for practising technique and timing. Don’t need to write them all out, just make plans. In the actual exam, always write a plan before you start writing. Do some outside reading, necessary if you want a first. But, you don’t need to know papers inside out, just the name of the person whose lab it was and like one sentence about their work / findings. Just have a name or two for each main topic that’s likely to come up. You’re not competing against each other for rankings, if you’re all good enough you can all get a first – collaborate! Write essay plans and share them amongst yourselves. You can be tactical, learn some topics better than others – you always get a choice of questions. Still risky, there was one paper where you’re supposed to answer 3 out of 5 of the shorter essay questions but I could only answer 2 – still not the end of the world. If you’re going to focus on anything, definitely focus on the lectures of the course leads – they set the exams! Critical appraisal in section B of paper – varies between courses

It’s a really intense week when it gets to exams but stay calm – you’ll know more than you think you do! I would say get a good night’s sleep before the exams but all-nighters can pay off!

How to choose a project Decide what you want from your project Lab experience? As clinical as possible? An easy life? A publication? Pick wisely If you want a publication – ask! Choose something where data collection can’t go wrong Is ethical approval sorted? Speak to someone who had that supervisor before Make friends with a PhD student! Not going to talk much about how to do well in your project at the moment as it’s a long way away and SORA will do another event nearer the time. But will just talk about choosing your project (if you want to do a project) as the time to choose will come around quickly. What do you want from your project? Lab experience? Something as clinical as possible? An easy life? A publication? Getting a publication or two is really useful for extra points for FPAS or AFP applications. If you want to try and get one it’s not unreasonable to contact supervisors before choosing their project and ask if they think there’s a chance of you getting a publication. Pick something where data collection is less likely to go wrong! Find out if ethical approval is sorted as delays in ethical approval really delayed some people starting their data collection. Speak to someone who had your supervisor the year before – see if they were helpful Make friends with a PhD student – will help with write up and getting a publication – it’s in their interests too! Be prepared to spend time on it after the year is over – you’re almost certainly not going to get a publication in the space of a couple of months.

Questions?