The course in general
How many contact hours do you have in the average week?
5

Ideally, what 3/4 subjects would you recommend doing in order to be in the best position for your course?
Biology, Chemistry, Maths, and Physics

Why did you decide to study your degree programme?
Biology was the subject I was best at and I enjoyed the most at school. My previous school also had a very good science department, with good Oxbridge preparation. My brother and Dad also studied biology at university.

Explain the things you wish you'd known about your degree before you applied:
The course is very heavily biased towards the theory of evolution. Also I didn't realise that statistics would be such a large, compulsory part of the course.

Describing your average day
Explain how your day is made up. For example, do you have labs/seminars/tutorials/lectures?
In the first year, most mornings start with 2-3 hours of lectures from 9am in the zoology lecture theatres then labs for 2-3 hours in the afternoons. Labs in the afternoons will be scheduled about 2-3 times per week. On top of this your college tutors will schedule 1-2 tutorial sessions per week which you will write an essay for and schedule that around your week. In the 2 year there are fewer lectures and labs are about 1 per week but they are optional. More tutorials and essays will be set. In the 3rd year there are even fewer lectures and labs are roughly 1 every other week. It is optional as to how many tutorials you take on.

How much extra work/reading are you required to do out of lectures?
Yes, alot of reading is expected outside of lectures, lecture notes give the basics of the course and you are expected to follow up on the reading list they give you at the end of the lecture notes. Preparing for the tutorial and writing the essay set from your tutor also takes a significant amount of outside reading. Roughly 4-8 hours per essay is spent reading and writing it.

Is there anything else you think is relevant or that you would like to add in respect of your course?
Some of the E&S lectures are taught by Richard Dawkins so it is worth reading a book or two of his before coming to Oxford.

The best and worst parts of the course
What do you like best about your degree programme?
A biology degree from Oxford is very well regarded. There was also quite alot of choice as to which areas of biology you wanted to study. I was able to give up cells and genes completely after the first year which was a relief.

What do you like least about your degree programme?
The compulsory statistic exam in 3rd year and all the minitab lessons that accompanied it.

Academics and course content
What do you think of your university's academics and facilities?
Very good facilities and academics.

Explain how you expected your course to be and how it compares to how it actually is. Give an outline of the content of the course.
First year is an overview of Organisms (which includes lots of animal dissections in the labs) and Cells & genes. These are all taught primarily by lectures and tutorials but also some lab work. Second year is Statistics, Evolution & Systematics and a choice of Animal biology, Cell and development or Ecology Third year E&S is dropped and you focus on Statistics, your own personal project and the area of your choice