Hi, I'm Matt Snowsill and I am your LUSUMA Graduate Rep.

Right, firstly congratulations to all those joining us at Leicester Medical School and welcome. I know how difficult it is to get onto the 4 year course so well done.

The school has an association called LUSUMA which acts to help you with socials, education, welfare and adjusting to being a medic. We represent a large number of students who choose to become members (there is a list of what benefits this grants you on this website although please note I'm hoping to get some more grad friendly deals sorted out for this coming year).

There are an enormous number of students in the school about 250 per year being on the 5 year (L5) course and 60 per year on the L4. It is worth noting though that you will be going into your clinical phase alongside those L5 students who will be in the second year when you join.

However we understand you’re not 18 year olds and the university experience you want might not line up exactly with those on L5 and your circumstances will also be different.

I was only out of University for a year while I worked as an HCA but I noticed there were very few other 22 year olds when I started. I reckon the average age for my cohort was 25 or so which means a lot of people joined and will be joining us having left jobs, houses or partners to do this course.

There is a period of adjustment but there are plenty of avenues, both formal (like the welfare office) or informal (like me and the other grads), to help you if you ask for it. The good news is that it will not take you long to meet people. Starting from the chemistry course (which even a Biochem or Pharmacy degree won’t get you out of) you will be surrounded by your future colleagues and we are working on making sure we give you as much of an opportunity to meet each other during this time as possible. Then follows Introweek just to make sure! After that you’ve got about 4 years to meet more people.

I remember being told how hard I'd have to work on this course when I applied. The truth is I have to work as hard as I was told, but harder than I understood at the time. That’s not to say that you should rot away in your room with a pen glued to your hand and a forehead shaped dent in your textbook, in fact I'm told those who unwind a bit will do better than those who only work… Forgive the lack of a reference.

It’s a well structured course so it’s very possible to keep on top if you put the time in. You’ll typically have around 1 module per day (sometimes 2 as you’re grads) which consist of 1 or 2 lectures a group session (with the group you are assigned at the beginning for every module for the whole of phase 1) and possibly seminar or dissection room sessions. The workbooks you’ll use for the group sessions are good resources and have almost all the information you’ll need and specify where you need to do learning by yourself.

As for exams… Don’t cram, it’s difficult! If you can keep on top of the work throughout then you should be able to revise rather than learn for the exams. They’re unavoidable but emphasise breadth of knowledge rather than depth. That means don’t rely on one module being your trump card. You’ll hear plenty about this in your first week.

So I’ve told you not to work all the time. Well LUSUMA has a proud history of massive socials like the PJ pub crawl (ah the memories) but also dinner balls (it’s worth investing in a tux lads), the Ski Trip and non alcoholic socials like ice skating, restaurant crawls and sports day. Once again you might be over the pub crawl and so we will be trying to put on events which all of you as members can enjoy. Also I’ve set up a facebook feedback group as a medium to try and help you discuss what kind of socials you’d want to see as well as other graduate specific issues.

There are other medical societies for your extra-curricular pleasure such as Medsin, Scrubs (surgical society), TACS (Trauma and Acute Care Society) or Teddybear Hospital all of which can be seen via the LUSUMA website under societies. Also they often have free pizza after lectures so you can learn and eat.

Leicester’s Students Union has plenty going on too (leicesterunion/clubs for more info) and Leicester as a city has good restaurants and some nice bars (also some dingy ones for those who like them), it has professional rugby and football which are walking distance from the uni and cricket which is a bit further. It has 2 cinemas, the odeon again being close to uni. It’s safe and everywhere you’re likely to want to go in the city is walkable.

I love Leicester Medical School. It’s been a long road getting here but I'm here and thrilled to be. But it is difficult and some people may end up questioning whether they made the right choice. I’ll be honest, 3 people decided this year that medicine wasn’t for them after all. However that means there are still 61 of us who are still here in my year and happy. You will always have people to talk to and I expect you will be very happy here. What’s more, the fact you and those around and before you were picked because we demonstrated good people skills means we are going to have a really good time the next few years.

Can’t wait for chemistry, I’ll figure out something to take the edge off.

Matt Snowsill
LUSUMA Graduate Course Representative