Applying to Medicine at Oxford or Cambridge - Questions to ask yourself, open days, stereotypes

Key Takeaways

hey guys welcome back to the channel if you new here my name is Ellie I'm a final year medical student at Cambridge University and this is a series of videos where I've interviewed a lot of my medical student friends and ask them for advice about the medicine application process last week we did a video about the personal statements this week's video is all about applying to Cambridge so if you're thinking of applying to Cambridge but you're a bit unsure whether the course is going to be for you or about the whole stereotype thing associated with Cambridge then hopefully you'll find some of the stuff in this video useful we'll start by talking about five questions that you should ask yourself if you're thinking of applying to Cambridge and then we'll go on to talk a little bit about open days and to talk about the stereotypes associated with Cambridge and whether that should stop you from applying we'll start off with Callum Paul Jacob Marcus and should end talking about these five questions that you should ask yourself to work out whether Cambridge is gonna be for you I'll see you in just a moment so the kind of person that finds the like science of medicine as well as the people bit of medicine particularly interesting will do well here we don't abandon the people bit of medicine everybody's got to learn that and you've got to be good at that by the end but if you are academically interested in medicine per se then this is a good course for you as a learner I like to understand things conceptually I'd like to build up my understanding of things from the ground up from first principles and and Cambridge teaches in that way if you are somebody who likewise likes to learn things conceptually likes to build an understanding rather than rote memorization then you should definitely do I apply to Cambridge so the good thing about Cambridge is that they have sort of their unashamed about what it is they set out to do with their medical education so if you want to be hands-on with patients from the word go it isn't the right place view and they make no bones about that however if you do like the sciences and you're happy to have a theoretical approach to medicine can start it could well be for you rich so do you like small group teachings we have supervisions which is usually a doctor or a senior person in the in the Faculty who does supervisions with three or four people and sometimes they can be quite intense it you know sometimes they're havin one-on-one so it's that small group teaching and the first few years are pretty heavy on the science and we do have things like writing essays and - science practicals so I think it's more that side of things that you would have to consider which which you would be suitable for [Music] and also the Cambridge terms are quite intense we have 8 weeks of lectures supervisions and you have to fit in a social life and sleep so you have to be able to cope with those intense eight week terms yeah definitely it is a lot of ways it's really fun it's one of those things where because it's so difficult you should band together of your friends and push through this and that's what makes it such a good experience I think is it is difficult but you you make such good friends because of the things you go through together all right so those are the five questions we think you should be asking yourself to work out whether you want to be applying to Cambridge for medicine now we're going to turn to Molly is going to be talking about open days at her own experience of applying so I think open days if you can get to an open day I think they're really informative I wasn't keen on Cambridge actually I didn't think I would be good enough I thought it was a completely different world of people and it was only one I was forced by my parents to go to one of the open days that I realized there are people just like me at this open day as well and people just like me who were giving people towards who all these students there and it really gave me hope actually that this was a place that you could go as a normal person you didn't have to be a complete nerd and all of that and so I think Avenue is really helpful especially as Cambridge has so many colleges I think it's really useful to see as many colleges as you can and get an idea of what the system is and for me what convinced me of my college was actually the admissions tutor talk so I think attending talks like that is great because you can see the people who will end up teaching you if you come here and finally let's turn to a discussion about stereotypes now I know this bit won't apply to everyone because a lot of people aren't really concerned about the stereotypes I mean when I was applying I was a bit worried that people were going to be weird in Cambridge but that it really had stopped me from from applying but over the last five six years of helping students with their medicine applications I have heard quite a lot of times that students are reluctant to apply here or apply to Oxford because they are genuinely concerned about the negative stereotypes they're concerned they won't be able to fit the concern everyone's gonna be really weird and I really nerdy you know all of these kind of things and and the media doesn't really help with this we get these news articles about Cambridge students burning money in front of homeless people and weird interview questions and and all of this stuff kind of creates this image that Oxford and Cambridge are places for other people rather than places for normal people like us so I mean if you are concerned about about fitting into Cambridge then I think you might want to watch this next section if you've already decided to apply already it doesn't really concern you because you just love the idea of going talk to the Cambridge then feel free to feel free to skip ahead but we're gonna getcha Dara Marcus chillin and myself talking about the Cambridge stereotype and about fitting in and that general area hope you find it useful I can tell you now that looking around a lot of my lectures there aren't many people that look like me but for me that was more of a motivation I think and we're just going to change until more of us apply and more of us get here so even if you feel like you don't fit the mold realize that there is space here for you regardless because the only thing you have to do is be intelligent enough to go yeah that's literally the only box you have to check so even if you feel like you don't fit what the media tells you is the Cambridge stereotype or whatever if you're intelligent enough then you you have earned your place here so just just burger and mine don't think you have to fit a certain mold or change will get here that's not true at all yeah I think the Cambridge stereotype is permeates through society but I don't think there is one yeah Marik's are all very different exactly I think that's thing that struck me that I initially thought other than there was gonna be such a Sarah type is gonna be hard to fit in but really everyone's really down to everyone has their own thing that they do people do different things some people are incredibly sporty and that's so much of your life other people like working like there's so many things that people get involved with here in Cambridge there isn't really one thing and I like if people worry about fitting in that's that's not really something issue because so many different people come to Cambridge and that's Sheldon would say the Cambridge serves so if the stereotype you if you were to permeate society it's everywhere so people from everywhere so have come here and you'll find somewhere feeling that's good I've spoken to a lot of people over the years who have been thinking of applying to Cambridge and haven't ultimately despite my trying to convince them because they've decided of Cambridge isn't for me I'm not the type of person for Cambridge and what I'd say to that is that yes you are the type of person for Cambridge if you don't fit the mold of you know private school wipes mail you know that kind of thing if you even if you do if you don't fit that mold then you are exactly the type of person who should be applying to Cambridge because how else will Cambridge is diversity increase how else will Cambridge become a place for everyone unless people like you apply and actually there are there are loads of youtubers around in smoke particularly that are doing a really good job of trying to smash this Cambridge stereotype of the white middle class rich male student so I mean if you're in need of inspiration I'll put some links in the in the description you should definitely check out their channels they're doing a great job the Cambridge communications department is also doing a great job of trying to show that on Cambridge is not this this thing it's it's not just as negative stereotype it's a wonderful place and we need wonderful people like you to apply it all right so thank you very much for watching that brings us to the end of this video we've talked about the five questions that you should ask yourself if you're unsure of whether you should apply to Cambridge and then we talked a little bit about open days and about fitting in and about the whole stereotype situation in conclusion I mean I absolutely love it here the vast majority of my friends absolutely love it at Cambridge and I've got a few friends at Oxford as well who who quite who quite liked it there as well I'd say that if you're thinking of applying to Cambridge the only thing that should help you decide one way or another is whether you think the course is going to be right for you if you're the kind of person that enjoys the academic side of things that that would cope well with the intense terms then yeah I definitely apply Cambridge is fantastic I personally have had a wonderful time over the last six years and I mean this is our final year and I was speaking to a lot of my friends and we all really start to be leaving and we can't imagine having gone anywhere else anywhere else for medicine but ultimately of course the decision is down to you I just hope that after watching this video hopefully if if even a handful of people decide to actually apply to Cambridge rather than thinking that you know it's not for them with it all it wouldn't fit in then that would be a very positive outcome but yeah thank you very much for watching if you liked the video please give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed to the channel please consider doing so we've got loads more videos coming out over the next few weeks about interviews mostly and I vlog every now and then about life as a medical student which some people find interesting but hey thanks very much for watching I'll see you next time bye