Year 2 SSC - Poster

This is more informative than an attempt at humour...

In the second year, one of the assessments is the "Student Selected Component." In year one this takes the form of a literary review of a title of your choice out of about 400 - which I found quite interesting. Year two, you are split into groups of six and must work together to form a poster with title of your choosing. It covers all the "Strands" which are Body and Disease, Health and Illness, Cells and Tissues, Organs and Systems, Molecules and Membranes, Doctors in Society, Psychology, Epidemiology.

We have actually had quite a long time to finish them (since before Easter until about four weeks ago) and print them off as A0.

I was slightly pleased with how ours had turned out, smugly comparing it to some of the others dotted around the place, with witty titles such as "Digesting Colon Cancer" and "The Diabetic Foot - its no Walk in the Park"

We also had to Peer Assess...again. A good thing about this assessment is the viva part - you are asked questions on the poster and your answers can add to your marks. We got asked three sets of five minutes' worth of questions by three lovely people, two of whom seemed rather disinterested and had unpronounceable names.

It's a unique experience, working together to attain a common goal. Some people in the group contribute more than others, some have outside priorities which interrupt the study schedule, but no matter what, we still finished on time and it looked goooooood.

The topics ranged from the mundane such as "What is the function of cAMP in [something]" to a very informative poster on Cannabis which seemed to include a little bit more information than you'd expect someone to know...well actually yes, you would in today's society.

I don't think anyone has ever failed this assessment. I've mostly written this for applicants, and the few year one students who I know read my excuse for a blog. It's enjoyable, however, writing literary reviews does seem far more satisfying and you've only got yourself to blame if you fuck up.

But if you do happen to find yourself doing this sort of project, it does give you a chance to write an awfully smart reflective piece on how you felt you felt about it.