Neuroscience

Misconceptions:

The degree title can be kind of misleading. NEUROSCIENCE. You’d assume you'll solely learn about the brain alone. This is far from the truth. You'll actually have to spend a lot of time on the rest of the body. My first year was 10% brain anatomy and 90% rest of the body. Of course as you progress through the course it'll become more and more neuro=based HOWEVER make sure you have a deep rooted understanding and passion for biological anatomy because you'll spend a load of time on it. Despite neuroscience being a STEM subject, you write and read a lot of scientific literature. Yes that's right, you still need to write essays :( Luckily though, they are scientific so it's a little less draining.

How it compares to A Level/IB: Neuroscience is basically a mix of chemistry and biology at A levels - give or take some topics within each subject. I personally hated biology at A-levels. But topics around the nervous system were my best friend. It's the reason why I made it through the subject. These topics are your insight into neuroscience because essentially you'll learn them all over again but in much more detail. As for chemistry, I absolutely loved and adored it. Not only was it interesting and fun (no i am not crazy), the majority of the topics come up in the degree. The major difference between A-levels and university when doing a STEM subject, such as neuroscience, is that it is very detailed and pretty fast-paced. Do not fall for the common misconception that university will be way easier. I am here to tell you, my friend, that it will not be.

The most enjoyable topics for me were fundamentals of pharmacology, cell neuroscience. Cell neuroscience and chemistry focuses on brain anatomy and chemistry of the brain whilst fundamentals of pharmacology focuses on the effects of medicine on brain activity..

The least enjoyable topic for me would have to be biochemistry. It's essentially most of the mechanisms from A-Level biology but in immense detail. For example the Krebs cycle. Memorising this cycle was hell because there's so much more needed to understand compared to A-Levels. I had to memorise 20 different reactions with scientific names and their hormones.

Usually with a neuroscience degree, individuals mostly go for stem related careers. These may include the pharmaceutical industry, clinical research, regulatory affairs, policy and research administration. Also many people go for a medical degree and then specialise in neurology (fancy word for a brain doctor).

Another very common career with neuroscience is academia. Through this you can do research and teach potential scientists at the same time! Cool right?!

That said, Neuroscience is like any other degree. You can use it for basically anything. The degree teaches you so many useful skills that most employers want in their employees. Most people think neuroscience is a one way door into research or medicine (with a medical degree to). This cannot be further from the truth! Coupled with a teaching degree, you can become a teacher, with some experience you can enter the media industry, you could even go into journalism. Remember, a STEM degree such as neuroscience has an array of opportunities for you, so make sure you know your options outside the stem careers.

You will graduate with the follow tangible skills:

• Ability to design an experimental study and non experimental research methods • Critical analysis of scientific literature and write your own too • Statistical ability and data analysis