Medical and life science

Interactive Learning Skills and Communication (ILSC) will help you to develop your academic, research, communication, and literacy skills in preparation for your undergraduate degree. ILSC covers reading, writing, speaking, and listening and will give you an understanding of institutional culture, practices, norms, and expectations of UK higher education. You will develop transferable skills such as effective communication to support ongoing study, career, and professional development skills.

Information Communication Technology (ICT) provides you with the practical computer skills needed for university. In this module, you will cover fundamental topics surrounding the use of technology and discuss these together with societal and ethical perspectives. This will allow you to reflect on and discuss the main challenges facing society and consider the implications of your technology use. This module requires no previous technical experience and will introduce you to practical ICT skills that will be needed for academic success across many areas of higher education. By the end, you should have sufficient proficiency in the Microsoft Office productivity suite for planning and producing presentations, using functions, and writing formula to display, formatting and analysing quantitative data, and producing written assignments to a standard appropriate to higher education.

This module aims to enable you to participate in and practice independent learning tasks for deeper thought and investigation as needed for Higher Academic pursuits. You will participate in a Socratic Discussion based around Conspiracy Theories and Source Checking to encourage presentation and debating skills. You will be encouraged to invest in strategies that will deepen understanding and interpretation of processes, motives, argument, rationale, credibility, and possibilities which will then be applicable to a range of studies. You will also undertake research, based on an issue related to your degree programme, to review the main points of examining an argument in depth. You will then learn to create a personal response that analyses the content of the issue under study.

Maths for Scientists will ensure that you have the necessary basic mathematical skills required for entry to level 4 on various science related degree programmes. By the end of the course, you will be able to carry out the basic mathematical manipulations and understand the relevant key concepts required to progress on to your chosen degree course. Each mathematical concept is introduced by a lecture, in which examples of how to use and apply the concept are demonstrated. The subjects covered are a range of arithmetic skills, algebra, areas and volumes, trigonometry, and basic statistics.

Cellular Biology will provide you with an introduction to key processes operating within living organisms, including energy provision, transport, control, and co-ordination alongside key ecological concepts. You will study the composition of cells and the structure, and function of the four groups of macromolecules: proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and lipids.

Biology is the study of living organisms and Physiology is an aspect of this which looks closely at the functions and mechanisms in a living system. In this module, you will study the science of body function and its relation to the structure, or anatomy, or the organism (physiology). You will learn how the main organ and regulatory systems work to enable the body to function and respond to change, whilst maintaining a constant internal environment. You will also gain foundation knowledge of organ systems and different regulatory systems, as well as learning to classify organisms and their major components. You will also be introduced to classification and the basic principles of genetic inheritance and consider this in the context of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

This module will provide you with an elementary introduction to chemical science. You will not be required to have any prior knowledge of Chemistry for this, and you will study materials undergoing chemical changes, the periodic table, chemical equations, calculating concentrations, quantitative chemical analysis, chemical equilibria, and organic chemistry. The practical element of the course will allow you to gain practice in some basic laboratory techniques based on the concepts covered in the lectures.

Physics for Life Scientists introduces the principles and laws of physics which underpin all life sciences. No prior knowledge of physics is assumed for this module, and the focus will be on those aspects which are specific to the requirements of your studies at Level 4 and beyond. Some of the aspects explored include how organisms move in relation to their environment; how organisms perceive their environment in terms of light and sound; how the physics of fluids and gasses affect the anatomy and physiology of organisms; how electricity is used to allow communication, how radioactivity impacts on organisms, and the applications of physics in modern medicine.