hey guys,

hope you're all having a good week. things are stepping up here in cambridge work-wise - the whole BA thing seems less of a dos than i originally thought!! the lectures are really interesting (and i only have 6 a week!) but the reference papers listed for each lecture are numerous (ranging from like 5 to 20 per lecture!) and although we're not expected to realistically read all those papers, there's always work we can be doing!

on a completely different issue, extra-curricular stuff is going well too at the moment - won our second college badminton match, which seems to have restored team confidence! also getting busy with halloween preparations, this is usually the time when the strange and bizarre make fleeting appearances on the streets of cambridge!

aside from that, i'm not really up to much - i've got a few open days for clinical schools coming up: at the moment i'm thinking of either staying in cambridge or going to UCL/imperial, but still can't make up my mind!

been a pretty quiet week really in cam, but will let you know when things hot up - sorry for the short post!

kief

hey guys,

last week after typing a pretty long post it got horribly lost, so fingers-crossed that this one works OK!

i've had a pretty busy week, so i guess i'll start with the academic side of things... the 3rd year at cam does take a bit of getting used to because (depending on what subject you choose) the impetus is much more on self-motivated learning, and reading scientific papers and reviews in your own time. what i'm trying to get used to is not have any formal supervisions (the small group tutorials) as such - i have to organise supervisions myself with the lecturers directly. the set-up is also different: whilst in the first two years your supervisors will go through lectures/practical material and then give you supervision work, the third year is different because our exams are all essay-based (!) so what supervisors ask is for students to prepare essays prior to supervisions and then go through them in the sessions.

i'm halfway through writing an essay on the functions of the fetal kidney... i'm really enjoying the developmental physiology modules, since it usually provides you with loads of wacky facts and figures to churn out when you're down the bar on a friday night! the other modules i'm doing are systems physiology and medical neurobiology, which are both quite medically orientated, so pretty interesting and relevant, which i find important to keep me awake!

aside from work, i've been busy organising our college badminton team - we had our first match of the season against Trinity IVth team and narrowly lost 5-4 so am a bit gutted tonight! i also went to formal hall (dinner) on friday night with some mates which was a good laugh - brought back all the memories from last year!

anyway, i've got to dash so i guess i'll be writing another post shortly, hope this one goes through!!

kirthi

oops!

apologies everyone,

i just typed a very long blog for this week just to find out that it didn't go through (and i can't find the original text i typed either!)... basically i was discussing the issues of clinical school choice, and also how i'm finding my 3rd year a completely different story to the 1st two years.

i'm running late now but i will try and retype up all this stuff next week!

kirthi

new term, new start...

hey guys,

back in cambridge now, bring on 3rd year! feeling decidedly old though seeing all the fresh-faced freshers running around college... i don't know where to start so i'll just update you with what's in store for me this term.

the 3rd year of the medical course at cambridge is pretty much equivalent to a standard intercalated year at any other medical school, with two main differences - firstly it's compulsory, and secondly it's a BA, not a BSc (don't ask me why it's a bachelor of arts for medics... cambridge is weird)!

i'm doing physiology for my BA simply because i enjoyed doing it in the first year, and as long as it keeps me interested i should be ok! you can literally choose to do anything though - some of my friends are doing italian, spanish, history/philosophy of science and even law! i decided to be not so adventurous and stick to what i know!!

hopefully this year should be less stressful than last year... no more ridiculous drug names to learn (i hope not anyway...) but i do have to make an important decision about where i want to go for clinical school. only around half the medics in cambridge can stay on in the clinical school, and most of the rest go off to london or oxford (though you can also go to some other 'compatible' unis like st andrews).

seeing as i live in south london i'm quite attracted to the idea of going to somewhere like UCL, and at the same time i feel it might be time to move on after 3 years in Cam. having said that though there are definitely some big plus points about cambridge, including the cheaper rent, smaller clinical groups and the fact that most of my mates will probably be here! anyway, i've still got a few months to make up my mind so we'll see...

right i'm off now - am djing at a toga party in our college for the freshers... should be interesting!

kief ;)