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The School of Life Sciences is the largest School at the University of Bradford and it
comprises four main undergraduate teaching areas. So there's Bradford School of Pharmacy,
School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, School of Medical Sciences and the School of Applied
Sciences with includes within it Archaeological Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Chemistry
and Forensic Sciences. The facilities and staff are second to none.
After coming on the Open Day, brand new labs, excellent team of academics and technicians
as well I chose Bradford because it offered a very,
very practical start. Right from week one you are working in the clinics.
It is very strong for biomedical science and the employment rates for graduates are very
high here, which is always a plus. We're very lucky to have all sorts of state-of-the-art
equipment and the difference with coming to Bradford is our students get to play with
the big toys at quite an early stage in their studies.
We have a number of characteristics that I think also make it a special learning environment.
We work with local clinical groupings; pharmacies, optometry clinics to provide work placements.
We also have a very large proportion of our lectures are professionally qualified. So
they are actually practicing pharmacy or optometry or have worked in hospital laboratories or
in archaeological digs. So when they're teaching our students, they are doing so from the perspective
of being professionals who understand what the work place is.
It's a competitive process to get a placement but we help students in terms by preparing
them in terms of their professional development, preparing a CV, we do mock interviews with
them and we help them get up to speed and look really professional when they go for
those interviews so they can land their dream placement.
We have a lot of research laboratories, we have a lot of research facilities and out
students have the opportunity to do projects in those facilities. So they get real experience
of what research is like. I think the hands-on experience is really
important because come when I'm trying to look for a job next year, if I've got the
practical experience it makes me a lot more employable.
I think it is absolutely essential that undergraduates are taught by people who are experts in their
field and the only way to have expertise in your field is to be a practicing organic chemist
if you're teaching organic chemistry. So my research is still focused towards discovering
new reactions, making interesting compounds. And what I learnt personally in the lab I
can pass on to my students in the lecture theatre.
The University itself is very close-knit which is a very good thing because you know everyone.
You can go anywhere in the University and make friends. Everyone is so friendly and
helpful. Although our education is at one level theoretical
but another extremely practical, and we're preparing our students not just to understand
the knowledge of their subject but be practitioners and professionals in that area and I think
that's very important.
You have people top in their field, especially with osteology which is a great thing and
to be able to have that experience and have someone guide you along the way has been great.
Because research is international we have a constant stream of visitors coming to the
university from other institutions. Often they give seminars and the students can come
to those seminars. We've had access to different computer programs
to help us with our work and we've also got a specialist librarian that can help us with
work so if we're stuck finding papers she can help.
I think the library facilities and also just the general life in university and the friends
that I've also made have all added to the experience in Bradford and also the reasons
why I wanted to come to Bradford as well. I think one of the best reasons to come to
Bradford is the world class facilities. The staff are so friendly, they help you out whenever
they can. They'll just be so supportive throughout the course.
University is so close to town, a ten minute work, especially accommodation it’s near
by, it's cheap and affordable and there are great people around so you make friends really
easily. Everyone's really friendly and it's great.
I like to think, and everyone says this, that we're smaller and friendlier but I really
think that is the truth. The students here get to know us on a reasonably personal level
and we'll make a cup of tea for them when they come to see us for example. And I really
do think that we can provide a personal experience that students might miss out on if they went
to a larger institution.
It's a really friendly multi-cultural campus and everyone's like a little family because
we're such a small uni as well everybody knows each other. There's lots of extra curricular
things such as sports teams and societies and there's always loads of stuff going on
and it's just a friendly, lovely place to be and I've really enjoyed it here.