It\u2019s Open Day season once again \u2013 that time of year when universities throughout the country open their doors to prospective students, advertising what\u2019s on offer, trying to entice the brightest and best.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Open Days<\/strong><\/a>, and their popularity, are a recent phenomenon.\u00a0 Back in the last century they didn\u2019t really feature.\u00a0 Perhaps there were a few school visits at selected institutions, but it was certainly not the norm to have the full day large scale events that are now commonplace. \u00a0Another aspect is that, although these days are aimed at prospective students, almost as many parents now attend.<\/p>\n We run six Open Days annually, with the first this year scheduled on Saturday 8 July, and the full capacity of 12,000 visitors is registered. \u00a0The day is a chance for us to showcase the huge range of courses we offer, display our campus buildings and central student facilities, show what our University is about.\u00a0\u00a0 Central to that is introducing prospective students to our key assets \u2013 our staff and current students.<\/p>\n So how do we organise the Medicine Open Days<\/strong><\/a>?\u00a0 Our base is in the foyer of Building 85, at Highfield Campus, with our Faculty Admissions team, armed with prospectuses and ready to answer the many queries \u2013 the most common being about academic requirements ( –\u00a0 we still require 3 A grades at A level for our standard undergraduate course, including an A in Biology and that A in Chemistry, sacrosanct to medical schools throughout the land \u2013 what\u2019s so special about an A in A level Chemistry?<\/em>)<\/p>\n One of our senior academic staff delivers 3 or 4 talks throughout the day ( – to capacity audiences of 400 each time) outlining what it takes to make a great medical student and doctor, how our course aims to deliver this and the detail of our selection processes. Throughout the day a team of academic staff involved with the course is on hand to answer questions about our curriculum and course delivery.\u00a0 We were the first med school in the country when we started over 40 years ago with a \u2018systems based\u2019 approach, but this has now been adopted by most others and so is no longer a USP.\u00a0 Our students get early patient contact, benefit from a \u2018research embedded\u2019 course with extensive input from world-leading researchers, have varied clinical placements and are supported by great pastoral care. Our BM5 course<\/strong> <\/a>has a unique student selected Medical Humanities unit, with opportunities for art and film and the bonus of all students gaining a BMedSc in addition to the BMBS within the 5 years.<\/p>\n Our current Southampton medical students are also out in force \u2013 able to talk about the realities of studying medicine here, advertise our great and wide-ranging MedSoc<\/strong><\/a> and extol the virtues of being part of the multidisciplinary University student community.<\/p>\n How we deliver our Open Days has evolved over the years.\u00a0 We are now at capacity for visitor numbers; the day is hugely busy, with a real buzz to it.\u00a0 Have you ideas about how we could and should improve these days for Medicine?\u00a0 Would you like to be involved? Have you experience of university Open Days elsewhere? We have now more Medicine places to offer at Southampton than ever before \u2013 261 places for entry in 2018\/19.\u00a0 How can we use our Open Days to best effect? \u00a0Please do let me know your views. 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