Selecting a degree for science stage 2

Victoria.

Ok so we had a lecture from Rogers yesterday about choosing subjects for stage 2 and we have to make a decision in less than a month.

Thing is I really am confused about all of the different degrees on offer and when you go around and ask the representatives of them they always say that their degree is fantastic and you should study that.

I love chemistry so I would want to go for something that has a lot of chemistry but related to biology too.

Choices at the moment for me appear to be:
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Medicinal Chemistry and Chem Biology - heard this is hard to get into
Cell and Molecular Biology - Don't think there is enough chem in this
Genetics
Pharmacology

I would be grateful if anyone could give me an idea of each one and even better if you're actually studying / have studied it. Thanks

nicheall

Hi Im in third year Medicinal Chemistry so can tell you about my course, pure chemistry ans a little about pharmacology as well.

As far as i know you get to choose 2 areas when going into second year, so its not as limiting. A lot of the courses you listed have a great deal of overlap in their second year modules, if you look through your science handbook you got at the start of the year you'll see this. Might be a good idea to look at what kind of things are studied in third and fourth year as well to see if you like them.

My 2 streams in second year were pharmacology and chemistry, didnt get a place in medchem til third year but i took up core modules for medchems that i wasnt doing as my electives so i pretty much had all the prerequisite modules for it by end of second year.
I dont know if its changed or not but i know in our year very few omnibus students were taken into medchem for second year, but going into third year there was an increase, so even if you dont get it for second year you can always try again going into third year as long as you have the modules.

In second year for chem and medchem you do about 5 chem modules, inroganics, organics, chemical biology and physical chem. For pharm, theres only 2 pharm modules and you do other modules in genetics, endocrine and biochemistry.

By third year, in Medchem you have 50:50 pure chemistry and biologies such as micro, biochem and pharm, and the chemistry modules will be mostly organic, chemical biology and analytical chemistry.
In pure chemistry there is no biology, but 1 or 2 chemical biology modules are offered as options.
In pharm the amount of actual pharmacology modules increases and you cover chemotherapy, toxicology, CNS diseases and do a lot of bmol and genetic modules. No chemistry modules for pharm.

Hope this helps

groovyniamh

Hiya! I'm also in third year Med Chem.

I was pretty much in the same position as you after we had our talk from Rodgers. My streams were also Chemistry and Pharmacology in second year. At that stage, I really thought Pharmacology was my only option, as the thought of doing pure chemistry kinda scared me and I didn't think I'd be able for it! But I was really in a pickle cos I much preferred the chemistry modules I had been doing up to that point. I had applied to do Med Chem after first year but didn't get it for some reason.

What I would suggest to you is that if you want to do med chem, but think that you might not get into the class, go and talk to someone in the department. I spoke to Pat Guiry about it and he recommended I just go and ask Francesca Paradisi about joining the class in third year. She was lovely and said I could, even though I didn't have one of the prerequisite modules. Lecturers really appreciate someone who takes an interest, and can often be very accommodating.

I definitely think that Med chem is a good choice if you want to study lots of chemistry and chemical biology. For me, its got the real life applications that are really interesting , like drug discovery, design and synthesis. The only other degree that you will do a lot of chemistry in is the pure chemistry degree. Pharmacology,Genetics and Cell and Molecular Biology students don't study ANY chemistry, and biochemistry, does't have much to do with chemistry as far as my experience of it has been.

Also, just a heads up about the types of learning involved in these subject areas. In pharmacology, there is A LOT of learning off by heart. I found this in second year when I had to learn off countless drug names, mechanisms of action and side effects for the exams. In chemistry, the approach is to learn guidelines etc so that you can look at a drug molecule and predict how its going to bind to a target and act in the body, for example. I just find this easier and more interesting than learning off by heart!

The last bit of advice I have is that if you don't get your 1st choice for stage 2, don't panic!There are plenty of ways to get your 1st choice even if you have to wait until third year like me

Hope this helped in some way

Fad

I was told to stay the hell away from med chem.

Biochem and Chem are supposed to be the among the best degrees you can come out with (Also, two of the hardest).

groovyniamh

Fad wrote: »

I was told to stay the hell away from med chem.

For what reason?

Fad

groovyniamh wrote: »

For what reason?

Because it's supposed to be a poorly focused degree, where you master very little. Also, your choice of 4th year projects is supposed to be quite limited.

(I was told all this by a 4th year)

Victoria.

Wow thanks so much groovyniamh and nicheall for the replies. Lots to think about there and it's great to actually hear from people studying the stuff. Reassuring too to know that there is a possibility of changing degree if the wrong decision is made.

I was just overwhelmed last week it was even worse than the cao

Medicinal chem sounds like an interesting one I think I'll try to get into that as one of my 2 choices. I heard that it's difficult enough to get a place but I may as well try.

Thanks

YouthNovel

I'm kinda in the same boat, picking streams for next year.

I'm looking at the physiology end of things.

Anyone doing physiology, could you explain how you got into it and what its like?

Thanks

aine92

I did physiology as a compulsory second year module (I'm 1st year neurosci) and I LOVED biology for the leaving cert, but I literally despised it, as did the rest of my class. The material itself was right up our street, its very very detailed cell biology, but the lecturers were just brutal which made it near impossible to stay focused.
You also do a thing called CALs which is Computer Aided Learning, sounds fun and stuff but once you realise that its pictures of cell ultrastructures as seen under an SEM microscope which you then have to draw in EXACT detail, ya soon realise its just crap.

Thats just my personal experience though, shop around for opinions

Victoria.

Anybody doing biochemistry?