Registered  members with 100+ posts do not see Ads

Taking an extra paper during ELM

Status
Not open for further replies.

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
Because I don't think we have a thread for this, and I'm probably not the only person who will ever wonder about this, how does the whole 'taking an extra paper in ELM' thing really work?
Do they let just about anyone do it, or is it more restricted to people doing quite well? Do they let you do it in semester two, or is it really more restricted to semester one when med doesn't have any summative assessments? And who do we actually contact about it/how far before semester starts do we need to contact them?
I've been thinking about taking one of the philosophy papers just for interest, and it seems to me like if you're going to do an 'extra' in med, first sem of third year would probably be the time to do it.
Anyone else thinking of doing an extra?
Thanks in advance [MENTION=5161]greenglacier[/MENTION], who this plethora of questions is largely aimed at :p
 

greenglacier

Emeritus Staff
Emeritus Staff
There's an official med school policy on this which, on the whole, is pretty encouraging of people wanting to take extra papers (up to one per semester, including semester 2). Taking extra paper(s) isn't particularly common, but the impression I get is that if you want to do one, you've got a good chance of getting it approved.

The things to bear in mind are:

- You have to give some decent thought as to whether this is a commitment you can take on. The extra paper I did in 3rd year was pretty straightforward, but it still did make it quite a bit harder to keep up with med coursework as well (and med 3 starts with neuro, where you really don't want to fall behind). I'm glad I took an extra paper, but I wouldn't recommend taking one on lightly.

- I haven't seen this written down anywhere, but the impression I get is that if you take an extra paper and there's a timetable clash with med, the expectation is that med will normally take precedence. The message here is that it's worth checking the timetable of any paper you're interested in (the paper I did had lectures from 1-2pm and 3 tutorial streams, which made it easy).

- You'll obviously have to pay tuition fees for any extra paper - on top of the already large med fees.

The process I went through was:

- Made an appointment with the associate dean for student affairs, through Jillian Tourelle, to discuss doing an extra paper/get it approved. The meeting I had was very chilled/straightforward. I think he was just checking that I had thought a bit about the paper, checked over the practicalities, and hadn't struggled at all in med 2.

- Attended ordinary course approval (yuck) to get it all official. As expected there were a couple of administrative frustrations, but it worked out in the end. As a tip, you can't just add an extra paper to your year (otherwise admin gets funny and says "but, but, but... it says you're studying MBChB and that isn't an MBChB paper!") - you have to also add "certificate of proficiency" under qualifications.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Registered  members with 100+ posts do not see Ads

Top