An Introduction to Medical School.

So yesterday (6/10/11) I went to a lecture at Kings College, at Guys Campus about entry into medical school. Its part of a series of lectures they're doing for year 13. Anyway it started at 5 but me and a friend got lost on the way down there, but managed to find it! I love Kings College, its my first choice of medical school.
During the lecture, of course I was taking notes and what they were saying.

At Kings college they look at :

• Your eligibility
• Academic criteria
• Non-academic criteria

So in the non-academic criteria, you should have:

• Community activities - Do you care for others?
• Scholastic activities - Can you be a leader?
• General activities - Are you a joiner and a team player?
• Paid/voluntary work - Can you deal with the general public?
• Work shadowing/observation - Do you have a realistic view of what a career in medicine entails?

So in terms of those, I'm really close. I start my voluntary work at the British Heart Foundation tomorrow (8/10/11) hopefully to improve my communication skills and such. Community activities, I start to tutor year 11s on Tuesdays after school, starting (11/10/11) to help them with their maths GCSE exam coming up soon. I remember those days *sighs*. General activities thinking of returning to my drama group in a few months time, hopefully after the January exams, which I'm panicking for even though we are in October. 

Your personal statement should:

• Reflect your experiences, commitments and achievements
• Be truthful
• Be specific
• Not plagiarise
• Express your motivation, interests and experiences.
• Be in first person ("I")
• Have an active and direct voice. E.g "I organised two weeks work experience on the labour ward."
• Only use words you understand and can explain

AVOID:

• Using slang or jargon, write simply and clearly
• CLICHES - "I have wanted to be a doctor since I was two" "Medicine is a dream job" "I want to free the world from pain"
• Irrelevant quotations - any quotes must be explained
• Meaningless cliches - "I am fascinated by the complexity of the human body

Tips for writing your personal statement:

• Write a series of drafts
• Organise what you say logically, write no more than 3 or 4 paragraphs, don't write two line fragments of information
• Ask someone to proof read it
• Ask yourself: what would a stranger learn about me if they read it?
• Could you break your statement into headings? If not, organise it
• Line the headings up and ask if it makes sense.
• CHECK YOUR SPELLING!

So there are some of the points I took down at the lecture. I'm going down to some more soon! Kinda excited for those! Right now, I've got to motivate myself to actually study hard. I constantly find myself doing nothing. I really need to push myself!