Medicine at Magdalen. Pretty daunting, huh? Well, first things first, don’t worry about the course. It’s only as hard as you make it, and as long as you’re interested in the subject (which hopefully you are!), you shouldn’t have any problems. That said, it’s not an easy course, and in order to get the most out of both the course and your time at uni, general organisational and time management skills are pretty essential.

As a medic at Magdalen, you will usually have 2-3 essays a week. This may sound like a lot, but once you start to find your way around the textbooks & get a feel for what’s required, it’ll stop being a problem. Essay crises are anything but a rarity in Oxford, but as long as it doesn’t become a weekly occurrence, it’s nothing to worry about. The point of tutorials is to go really in depth into some subjects to get you interested in them. Although the core material is covered, you will not need to know everything you learn in tutorials for the summer exams, and all the core stuff is covered in lectures. The medical tutors at Magdalen are some of (if not the) best in the university, and tutorials should be a stimulating intellectual experience (if sometimes a little interrogation-like!).

The lecture timetable for medicine is pretty comprehensive. Lectures will be from 9am most weekday mornings, with either practicals or more lectures after the first, finishing any time from 11-1. This may seem a bit of a chore and not the university life you expected, but if you’re going into medicine you can expect to have to bite the bit and knuckle down to some real work wherever you go. Mind you, the afternoons & evenings are usually free, and this leaves you to do indulge in whatever sporting, music, dramatic or other activities you wish to participate in. You will need to do a fair amount of work outside lectures, but it won’t obstruct you from doing anything you really want to do; proof of this lies in the surfeit of medic/hardcore rowers and even the odd medic/choral scholar!

For those thinking of applying for medicine, I cannot stress enough how worthy a subject it is and how wonderful a place Magdalen is at which to study it.