Guest blog | Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London | Student Work Placements Partnership Opportunity

Imperial College School of Medicine is actively seeking industry placements for students in the third year of the innovative BSc Medical Biosciences (BMB) course. During this final year, students undertake specialist modules that specifically examine health problems in the 21st century, and elect a project in either a laboratory, literature-based research project or a work placement.

The College is looking for a broad range of opportunities in industry, hospitals, publishing houses, museums, charities, legal sector, government agencies and more – anywhere that has a strong component of work on health challenges or biomedical science focus.

The course flips traditional learning and teaching styles to prepare students as future leaders in health and bioscience research, ensuring they graduate with valuable analytical and immediately transferable skills, ready for a demanding workplace environment. The pioneering course provides the opportunity for budding scientists to apply problem-solving skills to these critical challenges facing human health.

The role of industry in working with and helping shape future scientists is key. Students relish the opportunity to work with experienced industry leaders, and learn incredible amounts from an ‘on-the-ground’ experience, putting theory into real-life situations and seeing their knowledge truly in action. Not only does offering a placement actively invest in the future of biomedical science research, it provides an effective vehicle for recruiting and retaining top graduates later on - a key opportunity to harness the enthusiasm, knowledge and innovative ideas of new, keen minds.

BMB students come to the work placement module of the course well prepared, with two years’ key, up-to-date biomedical science knowledge, sound lab and research skills, analytical skills, and – most importantly - a keen, creative interest in tackling global health issues.

Successfully in its second year, the School of Medicine’s new course takes traditional biomedical science content and redesigns it. Teaching is turned on its head with the ‘flipped classroom’ method, the revolutionary ‘Lab Pod’ structure and a focus on team-based learning, bringing theory and practice together. This ‘blended learning’ pedagogy encourages students to take heightened responsibility for their learning by ensuring they are fully prepared for timetabled sessions. They also learn and appreciate the importance of good collaboration and communication with their peers, and working in a team to achieve best outcomes - skills immediately applicable to a work environment.

The course was developed in response to a variety of factors, including the constantly changing landscape of medical and medical bioscience education.  New education technologies are opening doors to innovative methods of both learning and teaching, and a generation of students are more powerful than ever with a vast array of information available at their fingertips. Focus is rising on individual learning styles and developing curricula where students are more in control of when and how they learn, and shaping courses to provide relevant and broad-reaching content that is immediately applicable in the workplace.

Students cultivate a sound knowledge of the science underpinning medicine and its related fields, and actively apply this to areas of research, policy and industry, becoming future research leaders in a variety of areas: academia, industry, policy-making, science communications and journalists, through to management, or museum curation.

If you’re interested in discussing or offering a work placement opportunity to a BMB student, you can find out more details on the BMB Industry Placements webpage, or get in touch with the team directly on [email protected]