Bioscience
Published: 15 August 2004
What do you come out with? BSc.
Why do it? Because you like biology and were good at it at school. Because you're interested in genetics and its role in medicine. And because you fancy pushing back the frontiers of knowledge in a rapidly expanding area of science.
What's it about? At the University of East Anglia (UEA) you cover everything from conservation biology to molecular biology and the structure of proteins. At York, you take a common first-year course in biochemistry, genetics, plant and animal biology, after which you specialise. At Warwick you get heavy doses of molecular biology. In the first year, you study proteins and genes, plus ecology and animal biology, and learn as much computational biology as you can stomach.
How long is a degree? Three years. Four years if you spend a year in industry or if you're in Scotland.
What are the students like? Career-minded.
How is it packaged? At Warwick, roughly 60 per cent of the course is assessed and 40 per cent is examined.
How cool is it? Fairly,although many do not find the maths cool. The subject is becoming more quantitative with the role of computers in the Human Genome Project, etc.
What A-levels do you need? University of Science and Technology in Manchester (Umist) asks for two sciences, one of them biology or chemistry. Warwick insists on chemistry rather than biology, which is a bit weird. The reason, they say, is that they can teach students A-level standard biology but not chemistry.
What grades? ABB at York; BBB at Bath and Umist; BBC is the minimum requirement at Warwick though ABB is the average; BBC at Edinburgh; BCC at UEA.
Will it keep you off the dole?Should do. Graduates go on to further training or PhDs. Some find jobs in the financial services sector; others go to work in laboratories or the pharmaceutical or biotech industries. At York, some go into management.
Will you be interviewed? No, at York. Yes, at Umist. At Warwick you'll be interviewed on an open day. Sometimes at UEA.
What do students say? "I thoroughly enjoyed the course. I specialised on the molecular side and spent a year working in industry. That year was phenomenally useful," said Rachel Curwen, 23, who graduated in biology from York in 1999. "It's great. I am enjoying it. We take a wide range of subjects. We've just started a 'diversity of life' module, which is problem-based learning. We're given a problem and we research it as a group," said Andy Porter, 18, a first-year student at Umist.
Where's best for teaching? Nottingham Trent, UCL, Bath, Birmingham, Kent, Salford, Sunderland and University of the West of England scored 24 out of 24. Aston, Edge Hill, Roehampton Institute, Manchester, Southampton, Essex and Warwick scored 23. Bolton Institute, Queen Mary and Westfield, Bristol, East Anglia, Luton, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Sussex 22. Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews were awarded an excellent.
Where's best for research?Cambridge and Nottingham got a tip-top 5* in genetics. Bath, East Anglia, Imperial, Umist, Sussex, UCL, Warwick, York, Aberdeen, Edinburgh got a 5. In addition, Cambridge got a 5 for biotechnology; Glasgow got a 5 for molecular genetics.
Where's the cutting edge?DNA - what you can do with it and what you can learn from it.
Who are the stars? Professor Diana Bowles, at York, for plant molecular biology; Professor Jonathan Slack, developmental biologist at Bath; Professor Howard Dalton FRS, Warwick University, known for methane-related proteins; Professor John McCarthy, who studies how information from your genes is turned into proteins and structures in the cell, and Professor Tony Whetton, both of Umist; amd Professor Gillian Murphy, for arthritis research, and Professor Bill Sutherland, for animal behaviour, both at UEA.
Related courses Molecular and cellular biology at Bath; computational biology is a new course starting this autumn at Umist; computational biology, and microbiology and virology at Warwick; and biology with management at UEA.
Added value: At UEA you can spend a year in Europe and a year in America. Umist has broken down the barriers between biology, chemistry and physics and is building a life sciences centre which will be multidisciplinary. That approach gives students a broader education. York emphasises small group teaching - tutorials of four students. Warwick emphasises technical skills - the sort of thing you learn in the lab. That helps students to get jobs. And Warwick runs a writing programme to turn horny-handed scientists into sensitive writers.
l.hodges@independent.co.uk
