St Andrews Medical School with Edinburgh Transfer

By Erin Bushe

Get the inside job (and how to prepare) – from a St Andrews Medical School Student with Edinburgh Transfer

Part of the joy of going off to university is experiencing the novelty and the changes, good or bad. However, that is not to say you cannot prepare yourselves for some of them! I went to St Andrews for three years and then transferred to Edinburgh Medical School. If you are not familiar with the St Andrews pathway, you complete a three year BSc in Medicine, before transferring to another medical school to complete a final three years of clinical placement. This can be one of: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Manchester or Barts. When applying to St Andrews, you have to choose between the Scottish or English pathway for you partner school, and then in your 2nd year of university you pick your choice. However, some partner schools are more competitive, so you are allocated based on your grades. There are positives and negatives to each partner school, but I will only discuss going from St Andrews to Edinburgh!

So, here are my top tips and hopefully helpful inside knowledge of St Andrews medical school.

Changing the way you study

Number one really has to be that you will need to work differently from school. I think this will be relevant no matter which medical school you choose. You cover a much greater volume of material in a much shorter space of time. Sometimes. it felt they would cover what would have been comparable to a whole module of Higher or Advanced higher in a single lecture. That means that you have to adapt your learning style to what is most efficient. It’s handy to know for St Andrews that everything you need to know for exams is on a lecture slide somewhere. I had never made flashcards before, but when I started university, I just transferred everything from the slides onto flashcards. This worked well for me, but might not for others!

The Academic Experience