1. How to choose your BSc

2. What factors are important to you?
Overview
What factors are important to you?
General factors to consider when choosing your BSc
Factors to consider for specific courses– med hums, management, bioeng and computational medicine
Making the most of the BSc fair
Q&A and “mini BSc fair”

3. What factors are important to you?

4. Using advice from older students
They’ve been through the process before and it’s fresh in their mind
You will ultimately experience it from their perspective, not the lecturer’s perspective
They can provide information you won’t find online or at the BSc fair
Most BSc’s will be completely different this year
Organisers of the BSc and lecturers will change
One student’s experience may not be reflective of the whole BSc

5. Portal opens Wednesday 6th 17:00pm
Key dates
Portal opens Wednesday 6th 17:00pm
Portal closes Wednesday 13th 17:00pm
Allocations released Wednesday 20th 15:00pm

6. 3 blocks of teaching and ICA’s Module 2
Overview of the year
Module 1
12 weeks
3 blocks of teaching and ICA’s
Module 2
4 weeks
Group project
Clinical Case Study
Module 3
15 weeks
Project with write-up and presentation

7. 30% Module 1 25% Module 2 45% Module 3 BSc Mark Breakdown
Written task – 9%
Oral task – 9%
Data management and interpretation & communication of findings – 22%
25%
Module 2
Group project – 15%
Clinical Case Study – 10%
45%
Module 3
Project write-up – 35%
Oral presentation – 10%

8. How is your BSc used in the future? - FPAS

9. How is your BSc used in the future? - FPAS

10. How is your BSc used in the future? - CST

11. Projects on offer and chance of getting published
Factors to consider
Personal interest
Relevance to career
Competition
Location
Relevance to years 5 and 6
Projects on offer and chance of getting published
Chance of getting a 1st
Contact hours and workload

12. How to decide…
“What are you supposed to get out of your BSc?” + “What do you want to get out of your BSc?”

13. Cohort Size

14. The new BSc’s 4 new BSc’s this year:
Anaesthesia & Critical Care
Cancer Frontiers
Remote Medicine
Surgical Design, Technology and Innovation
Obviously less known about these compared to more established BSc’s
Quite exciting and novel
May appeal to you because of career relevance or personal interest

15. Cohort Size
Negative correlation between cohort size and student satisfaction
Larger cohort:
More opportunities for projects
More people to meet
Better peer-to-peer support
Smaller cohort:
Get to know people better, including your lecturers
More personalised feedback

16. Relevance to Future Career
Particularly easy if you know what you want to go into
If you are unsure (like most people!) then take the time to think for what specialties that BSc may be relevant
This could be both the taught content and the BSc projects
You may even use the BSc to realise you don’t want to pursue that specialty further… that is still helpful!
There will be opportunities throughout your career to build evidence of your interest

17. My BSc and Project had relevance to….
Neurology
Neurosurgery
Psychiatry
Pharmacology
General Practice
Geriatrics
Immunology
Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Oncology
Paediatrics
Pathology
Artificial Intelligence
Cardiology
Health Policy & Leadership

18. Location Mainly relevant to Module 1
Could be in CX, HH or South Kensington
More relevant if you commute into London
Projects can also be in other locations

19. Competition Allocations based of preferences and rankings
Ranking calculated as: Overall year 1 mark (30%) + Overall year 2 mark (70%)
“To allocate students to BSc pathways, we go down the ranked list starting at the highest ranked student allocating students to their first choice. Once a pathway is full, the next student with that pathway as their first choice will be allocated their second choice and so on”
You can find your rank used in the allocations on blackboard

20. Competition

21. Your interest in the topic
If you like what you are studying you are more likely to do well in your BSc
May help you narrow down choices
Don’t do a topic you dislike just because the workload is light or you are more likely to get a 1st
If unsure what you are interested in:
Which lectures interested you most in years 1 and 2
Which conditions or firms have you enjoyed most this year

22. Relevance to 5th year
Some BSc’s will cover content that is useful to know in year 5 and beyond
What may be relevant to year 5?
Neuroscience – Psychiatry
Repro – Obs & Gynae
Haematology – Pathology
Immunology – Pathology
Unlikely to be a deciding factor

23. Coursework Will do both oral and written content, including: Essays
Critical Appraisals
Lab projects
Poster presentations
Articles
Designed to give you the various skills needed in academic medicine
Consider what you where you want to improve and grow

24. Lab based Clinical Paper based Skills gained Getting published
Projects
Skills gained
Getting published
Lab based
Clinical
Paper based

25. Workload Varies a lot between courses
Take into account contact time, types of coursework, extra reading
What do you want to get out of the year?
Heavy workload means you learn more and develop more skills
Less workload means more time for extracurriculars, part time work etc

26. Chance of getting a 1st Obviously everyone wants a 1st!
ICSM Gazette has the 1st rates for all current BSc’s online
Influenced by internal & external factors
Will you get as much out of the course if it’s easy?
Very difficult to know how likely you are to get a 1st this year

27. Chance of getting a 1st

28. Socials Definitely not a priority!
Some BSc’s organise socials with your group (sometimes with supervisors)
Sociability of your course is probably more reflective of your group than the course itself
What BSc’s are you friends doing?

29. Useful ways to help choose your BSc
Exclude any courses you have no interest in
Exclude any courses you are unlikely to be allocated
Make a note of what key things you want to get out of your BSc
Following the BSc fair, run through the courses you have left and consider how each one fulfils your personal criteria
Try to pick at least a top 3 you would be happy to do any if allocated them
“Would I regret not doing this BSc?”
“The factors that draw me to this BSc, could I find them elsewhere or even outside of a BSc?”

30. BSc Fair

31. BSc Fair
Go into the BSc fair with some general preferences, and try to read the info on blackboard for these in advance
Have a game plan – know what you want to ask and where you want to go so you don’t miss anything
Opportunity to speak to the course leads and current students
Start with the top preferences and visit their stands, then try to visit as many others after as possible/you would like to

32. Useful questions to ask
For the course lead:
Do you know where the course will be located?
How many contact hours will there be per week?
What will the coursework involve?
What kind of projects are on offer? Are they mainly clinical, lab based etc? Is there much scope for a student to come up with their own project?
Do students need to do further reading outside of lectures?
How often do students get published?
How competitive is the BSc normally?

33. Useful questions to ask
For current students:
What do you like/dislike about the BSc?
Why did you choose the BSc?
What would you tell someone thinking of doing the BSc?
How sociable is the BSc?
Would you do the BSc again if you had the choice?

34. Humanities, Philosophy & Law
Noah Blackmore

35. This can’t involve real patients
Structure
Module 1: The Body
Module 2: The Mind
Module 3: Death & Dying
Project
This can’t involve real patients

36. So what is it like? Do you like reading? Are you sure?
Are you really sure?
Humanities:
History (mostly 18th century onwards)
Literature, both fiction and non-fiction
Art, film and music
Philosophy
Ethics
Law

37. Mythbusting HPL is the ‘soft choice’ No, it’s different, not easy
It’s all airy-fairy/wishy-washy/nonsense
There’s a bit of this, but not much
It’s easy/impossible to get a first
Again, it’s different. It’s about making arguments, not regurgitating facts
It’s not a science so you can’t get published
MedHums not only has its own journals, but often features in others too

38. Feedback! – https://tinyurl.com/BScposttalk
Thank you for listening!
Feedback! –

39. How to choose your BSc – Q & A