Nabila
MPharm Pharmacy
The best thing is the format of the course. I enjoy the fact that it’s not just lectures, because I know for a fact, that if it was, I would be sat falling asleep. It’s quite interesting and interactive and the lecturers, they are willing to take on board our feedback and improve next time.
Team-based learning
"On my course, we do this thing called ‘TBL’, it’s Team-Based Learning. So, what the lecturers do, they release a reading pack, then from that, we have a week or two to read through it, understand it. You do some essential reading, that’s part of the pack and then there’s some optional reading that you can choose to do to further your knowledge.
"After that, you do a test by yourself and then you do a group test and the answers are given to you then and there, just to assess where you are, now that you’ve done your own learning on this and after that, we’re put in these TBL teams where we do exam-style questions in a workshop room.
"So we’ve got lectures, we’ve got the workshop rooms, we also do labs in the prescription processing labs, it’s just how to dispense a prescription, what are the processes of that, how to look if the prescription is legally correct, if there’s anything wrong with the medications that are on there. We also use labs, more different types of labs to kind of show, learn and also teach our cohort and our peers how to use devices, so like, inhaler techniques."
Course rep
"Last year, I was course rep. In total, we had about six meetings in the year with the head of Pharmacy and with people from different areas. It was just, quite fun.
"I thought it was quite fun just, not to go on a power trip, but just having that authority where, or knowing that people can come to you if they have any issues with the course or if they think of anything that can be improved on or anything that’s good they can let you know and you can pass that onto people above and then they can make tweaks and changes."
Placement Opportunities
"In every year, you do at least three days placement; two days in a community Pharmacy and one day in a hospital. I’ve done that throughout, you do that in every year of the course.
"Now that I’m in my fourth year, I’m doing the sandwich programme, where I do six months placement in my fourth year and six months in my fifth year.
"So, I’ve already been out on half of my pre-registration training that we need to do before I can become a Pharmacist and I think I did enjoy it.
"Initially I was like oh my god, I need to stand eight hours a day, my feet! But to be fair, I did enjoy it. I love working with the patients and the customers who come into the pharmacy. People would come into the pharmacy, have a chat with the workers behind the counter and other customers, it was so full of life."
The pharmacy I worked at, it was in the heart of Bradford really, in the middle of quite a diverse community, everybody came in and it’s like a massive family with the Pharmacy linking them together. People would come in, have a chat with the workers behind the counter and other customers, it was so full of life.
This is where
...I came out of my shell
I didn’t know what to do really once I’d finished A Levels. In my final year, I did maths, chemistry and biology. I was a bit stuck because I did want to pursue maths further, but my cousin was a Pharmacist and I’d done a bit of work at his and I quite enjoyed that, so I thought, why not try Pharmacy. I spoke to my family and they were trying to say "what’re you going to get out of maths, do Pharmacy, you’ve got a set career path there." So, I started it and you know what, I just got lucky, I love my course.
Bradford is definitely where I came out of my shell because originally, I remember growing up, I didn’t go out much. It was at the point where I didn’t even throw the bins out because I didn’t want to leave the house. So anything other than school, because I was that scared of going outside. But that all I think ended after I finished my A Levels. I did develop more as a person coming to uni. I did mature a lot, I did just kind of grow out of it.
