Hope
University of Oxford
Medicine
3rd Year
DBS
21About Me
Hi! I’m Hope, a third year medical student at Oxford. I’ve had a lot of trial and error when it’s come to my learning, and being at Oxford has really forced me to learn strategic and effective strategies to maximise my time when I’m studying – meaning that I can have more time to enjoy my life outside of my studies! I’m a huge believer in that studying doesn’t have to take over your life, but that you do need to learn how to study efficiently if you want to do well and still maintain a balance. I was always a high achiever at school (9 9s and 2 8s at GCSE, A*A*A at A level), but I realised when I came to university that my studying techniques weren’t going to suit me anymore. I’ve spent a lot of timing learning how to make the most of your time studying and how to really understand the content you’re dealing with, therefore I would be more than happy to share on the skills I have learnt by helping you in any subject areas you may be struggling with at the moment!
On top of this, I am super passionate about helping individuals get into Oxford and Medicine in general, wherever they may want to study. It’s a super competitive field and unfortunately a some people get a huge head start depending on where they went to school or their family background. I went to an unsupportive school who couldn’t offer me any help, and so I had to learn myself the ropes of how to get into Oxford and how to get into Medicine. Therefore I pride myself in the fact that I managed to land my dream university and course practically only from my own research and self-sufficiency. I have previous tutored students in their Oxford Medicine interviews, who have told me that the advice was helpful and reassuring, and over the course of a few mock interviews I have seen their improvements. I’m really keen to continue this tradition and help as many students as I possibly can, particularly students who may come from a background similar to mine. I experienced a period of sickness during my sixth form course which meant I missed out on a lot of teaching and I was told by my sixth form tutors that I could try to get into Oxford but there would be no chance of me actually being accepted due to how behind I was with my studies. Not only did I manage to teach myself all of the content which I had missed in a few short months (when I was told I may have to repeat a year), but I managed to secure the only Medicine and the only Oxbridge offer in my sixth form. If anything, I hope this can assure you that I am equipped with the knowledge and skills to guide teaching, as I did with my own, and that I know exactly how to help someone get to the fortunate position that I am in now.
I would love to get to know you and help you with any struggles you may be facing in your school studies, and in particular if you are looking to get into Medicine or Oxbridge, I would love to help you with your application process, whether it be your personal statement, interview prep etc. I look forward to hearing from you! 🙂
My teaching style
I find the most important thing to address before we dive deep into a topic is to make sure the student understands the big picture. For example, why is this topic area relevant? In Medicine this comes into play when we are thinking about learning a disease, if we are just going to memorise the name of the bacteria and the cells which are involved in fighting the infection, we will struggle later on to remember this. The information we learn needs a context to be able to place it strongly in the network of neurones in our brain! The more connections and links we can make between information, the far easier everything becomes to learn. For teaching I think it’s therefore important to include real-world examples of the concepts we are talking about and to discuss first how ideas may relate to one another. Whilst this style of learning is a lot more important in higher education levels, in school level learning a lot of the focus is on rote learning and memorisation – however it still has its place in being able to enhance memory through real-world context and examples, anecdotes can also be very useful here. The second most important thing for me would be looking at exam papers, exam mark schemes and examiner’s comments. At the end of the day, the student will be sitting an exam, and their knowledge has to be matched to how these exams will be marked.
In terms of Oxbridge and Medicine admissions tutoring, in general I would begin with a session talking about the students’ concerns and questions, whilst also talking about my own experience and advice. If we are looking at mock interviews, I would split the session with a mock interview in the style of a real Oxford interview, which I have made myself in the past based on my own experience, followed by a discussion of their answers and where they can improve.
My past experience
Yes, I have previously tutored in GCSE science and I have tutored 4 students previously in Oxford Medicine admissions, over the course of several sessions.
My Proudest Achievements
As mentioned above, my proudest achievement would be how I have managed to turn my life around from that sickness I experienced during sixth form, to be able to land my dream university and course, all on my own with very little help from others.
I teach
- Medicine Interview
- Oxbridge Interview
- BMAT
- Med Personal Statement
- Science
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Maths
- Statistics
- English
- English Literature
- Spanish
- Geography
- Psychology
- Medicine
- Oxbridge Application
- Personal Statement
- UCAS
- Fitness
- Exercise and Fitness
- Weight Lifting
My Results and Achievements
- BMAT admission test: 5.9/5.2/3.5A
- Accepted to Oxford Medicine
- Tutored 4 students in Oxford Medicine interviews
- 9 9s at GCSE
- 2 8s
- A*A*A at A Level