New Medical Sciences students
Medical Sciences
Welcome to Medical Sciences at the University of Exeter.

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you all as our new intake of Medical Sciences students. I and my team of friendly, supportive academic and professional services staff are very much looking forward to meeting you and guiding you on your journey to becoming independent scholars (not as daunting as that may sound right now!).
Medical Sciences offers you the opportunity to explore the science that underpins medical practice, taking in multiple biomedical disciplines relevant to human health and disease along the way, as well as options to pursue a health research specialism if people and populations are more your thing than cells, proteins and genes. You can therefore study content that helps to inform our understanding of the molecular basis of disease and possibilities for new modes of diagnosis or treatment, or content that informs healthcare policy and practice – or a mix of the two! All this is done largely through working in small teams, providing a ready-made study group environment to support your learning, with academic guidance throughout. Through this, you will develop a number of transferable skills that will serve you well in your future career, whatever that may be. Please do keep an eye on our programme Yammer feed, where news, events and opportunities will be posted, and pop in to the St Luke’s Hub or academics’ open office hours, in order to ask any questions or seek study guidance – I would be very happy to discuss any aspect of the programme with you
Professor Emma Taylor, Programme Director, BSc. Medical Sciences
Welcome week
During Welcome Week you will have many opportunities to meet your fellow students and some of the teaching staff on your programmes too. As well as the fun stuff offered by the Students' Guild (such as taster sessions for various societies and sports clubs for example) you will also be attending timetabled welcome/induction sessions for your degree programmes, which will inform you about what to expect as a student here at Exeter.
Information about Welcome Week activities planned for the BSc. Medical Sciences programmes will be available soon. Once you have access to the University's teaching timetable through the iExeter student app, you can find out when and where you need to be during Welcome Week.
Details on all of the Welcome Week sessions and other important resources for new students will also be available on our Welcome Week ELE page.
We will be updating this page regularly as new details of induction and welcome activities are released. Please ensure you check back here frequently for updates.
If you have any questions about your induction or starting your studies, then the Info points are the place to go for any questions you may have about your life as an Exeter student. Ours is Info at St Luke's; you can contact them on Tel: +44 (0)1392 724837 or Email: info.stlukes@exeter.ac.uk
We look forward to meeting you!
Useful information
The teaching staff look forward to meeting you at the 'Welcome to Your Programme' academic induction session on Tuesday 20th September at 10:00am in the Alumni Auditorium in the Forum, building 3 on the (Streatham campus map).
Induction timetable
Date | Time | Event | Location |
---|---|---|---|
Monday 19 September | Bank holiday | ||
Tuesday 20 September |
10:00-11:00 | Welcome to your programme and meet the teaching team | Alumni Auditorium, Forum |
11:30-12:30 | Biosciences Lab Induction | GP101 Teaching Laboratory (building 30) | |
12:30-15:30 | Campus Open Day | ||
15:30-16:30 | SEMS Induction session (SEMS students only) | NC12 lecture theatre | |
Wednesday 21 September |
9:00-10:00 | BAME and EDI session | G18 lecture theatre |
10:00-11:00 | International Students Networking Event | G18 lecture theatre | |
11:00-12:00 | Mature Students Networking Event | G18 lecture theatre | |
Thursday 22 September | 9:00-12:30 | Campus Open Day | |
12:30-13:00 | Meet Your Academic Tutor Group |
(various rooms) |
|
Friday 23 September | 11:30-12:00 | Meet Your Academic Tutor Group | (various rooms) |
12:30-13:00 | Meet Your Academic Tutor Group | (various rooms) | |
14:00-15:00 | Student Voice & Peer Support | NC12 lecture theatre | |
15:00-16:00 | Marquee: Pub Quiz & refreshments |
We are often asked which textbooks you should buy. There are many different textbooks suitable for the early years and as the course progresses other texts will become important too. Copies of these books (and others) will be available in the University and/or Medical libraries.
There is no need to purchase any text book before arriving. We would strongly encourage you to try out the available textbooks in the first few weeks of term before you consider buying!
It is also worth noting that you will have access to a number of electronic texts that support the programme, these are the same books that are available in print but enabled for viewing on PCs/Laptops and Tablets. The first year of BSc Medical Sciences is mostly concerned with normal human functionand the development of your study skills. There are several relevanttext books available for your use in the library and, as different learners prefer different styles, we recommend you try out a few different text books within your first term of University. It is likely there will be significant student discounts available on certain recommended texts during the first few weeks of term.
Recommended textbooks (all available as e-textbooks from the electronic library)
- Boyle, J. & Ramsay, S. 2017, Writing for Science Students. Palgrave. Encore -- Writing for science students [electronic resource] / Jennifer Boyle and Scott Ramsay. (exeter.ac.uk)
- Harris, M., Taylor, J. & Taylor, G., 2013, Catch Up Maths & Stats: for the life and medical sciences. Scion Publishing. Encore -- Catchup maths & stats : for the life and medical sciences / Michael Harris, Gordon Taylor, Jacquelyn Taylor. (exeter.ac.uk)
- Naish, Jeanette and Syndercombe Court, Denise, 2019, Medical Sciences (3rd edition), Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-7020-7337-3 Encore -- Medical sciences / edited by Jeannette Naish and Denise Syndercombe Court. (exeter.ac.uk)
- Sherwood, Lauralee, 2016, Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems (9th edition), Cengage Learning, ISBN: 978-1-285-86693-2 Encore -- Human physiology [electronic resource] : from cells to systems / Lauralee Sherwood. (exeter.ac.uk)
- Costanzo, Linda, S. 2018, Physiology (6th edition), Elsevier, ISBN: 978-0-323-47881-6 Encore -- Physiology / Linda S. Costanzo. (exeter.ac.uk)
- Cottrell, Stella 2019, The Study Skills Handbook (5th edition), Red Globe Press ISBN: 978-1-137-61089-8 Encore -- The study skills handbook [electronic resource] / Stella Cottrell. (exeter.ac.uk)