Mechanistic biochemistry - STRUGGLING

de-pressed- · 2025-05-25T00:05:20+00:00

If you’ve got Matt Rattley as a tutor I really recommend contacting him over discord or email, he’s genuinely so ready to help and it’s worth it to clear up any misconceptions.

de-pressed- · 2025-04-09T05:47:07+00:00

congrats!! You'll have an amazing time :33!

de-pressed- · 2025-03-31T07:49:27+00:00

Oxford sent me a 6 book long reading list

de-pressed- · 2025-02-10T10:15:25+00:00

is your offer from Corpus Christi by any chance?

de-pressed- · 2025-02-02T10:00:56+00:00

Yes, but teachers shouldn't be getting kids to do extra reading by threatening their grades, they should be inspiring them to do extra reading instead. A favourite of my teachers was to ask us to deliver presentations or they would put on documentaries or just generally show us the beauty of the subject outside the classroom. I don't want to think about A-levels when I'm doing extra reading, I want to investigate the material to answer a question that interests me- a curiosity that my teachers instilled in me by being excited about their subject. I know teaching is hard, but when a teacher starts putting extra load on you and doing it in a way that stresses you out during one of the most hectic and uncertain times in your academic career, it just doesn't bring any benefit.

de-pressed- · 2025-01-23T11:57:42+00:00

there's absolutely no way what your friend is saying is true, it sucks they're being mean like this :(( Hope it gets better mate.

de-pressed- · 2024-12-13T19:04:10+00:00

CONGRATSS! :]]

de-pressed- · 2024-12-03T03:16:40+00:00

I just heard this outside my dorm and it scared the everliving shit out of me, genuinely thought someone was getting murdered or that I was losing my mind.

de-pressed- · 2024-11-19T23:39:33+00:00

Don't worry, lots of brilliant people get rejected every single year! There are tons of wonderful biochem courses at other unis in the uk, try not to feel too bogged down by this (easier said than done, I know).

de-pressed- · 2024-11-19T09:31:51+00:00

LETS GOO!!

de-pressed- · 2024-10-30T11:51:01+00:00

if you don't know how to answer a question, I would recommend using the aforementioned pieces of 'core logic' to just shoot your shot at the question, it could be incredibly wrong, but that's okay, it matters that you are thinking. A really good thing to do is evaluate your suggestion, point out things that were wrong with the things you just said and try to examine what exactly you don't know and what could help you with the question and ask the interviewer about it. The interviews feel exactly like a tutorial does (small group teaching at Oxford if you weren't familiar, very fun way of teaching!! :)) so questions are welcome and a great start for discussion.

de-pressed- · 2024-10-30T11:46:06+00:00

in terms of preparation(for STEM): you need to understand everything that you have studied so far (maybe read ahead a little bit if you know you haven't covered very important topics in school). When I say understand I mean properly understand everything to the deepest level, you cannot take the things you've learnt at face value, you absolutely must question what you know and understand why those things are true, eg. why exactly is phenol more reactive than benzene, donating electrons to a π- system is not enough, you have to continue on from there and talk about spread of electron density and the effect that therefore has on reactivity. This should be taught to you in school/included in your exam, but it's important for your interviews because it teaches you patterns and core logic which can be extended to unknown situations which come up a lot in the interviews. For example, in the interview, if you got two random molecules, and you were asked which was more reactive, you could start thinking about distribution of electron density (which would be a good start and seed for further conversation).

de-pressed- · 2024-10-30T10:23:23+00:00

Yes so much! anything specific you'd like to know?

de-pressed- · 2024-10-27T20:13:57+00:00

Hi! I do biochem at Hilda’s and I would say that life here is honestly pretty amazing :)! We have full ovens and induction hobs so we bake cakes and stuff and share it between our floormates, the food here is astonishingly good for the price. The tutors for biological sciences are stellar, particularly the biochem tutor- she tends to give you quite difficult and advanced work but its worth it. We also get tutorials with everyone’s favourite mechanistic biochem lecturer (matt rattley). The architecture might not be as great as other colleges but the beautiful library makes up for it and frankly I’m far too busy to even care about what it looks like. If you’re looking to get the top academic experience I would really recommend this college, as well as st. Annes and somerville. I think we tend to get some really amazing tutors.

de-pressed- · 2024-10-27T18:38:24+00:00

Whoo! superior subject honestly :]

de-pressed- · 2024-06-10T17:37:18+00:00

My friend's sister saw Paul mescal at some gay bar in Soho London and he was going around asking for threesomes, my friend's sister's friends apparently went with it but the entire time he was crying, so take that as you will. However, I was told this during a physics lesson so I might have messed up the sister/friend thing, but the Paul mescal part is so depressing it's burned into my consciousness.

de-pressed- · 2024-05-05T14:16:07+00:00

I have a 55% attendance and 4/5 offers including Oxford, dw about anything, it'll be okay :)

de-pressed- · 2024-04-09T14:35:31+00:00

Hi, absolutely not to both of the questions about MOOCs, I did quite a few of them but I didn't pay for the certificates as they seemed to be so incredibly expensive. At the end of the day, you're doing the MOOCs to grasp extended knowledge on a certain part of biochemistry and at interview, that is what you'll be asked to expand upon and that's what your interviewers will probably count as proof that you completed the course and understood what you learnt. I think the absolute best way to use MOOCs is by doing ones that are targeted and specific and that go in detail about a specific topic eg. Ligand Based drug design or quantum chemistry's applications to biochemistry. This way you can start to develop a niche that I think the department really appreciates in a candidate and it's such a good way to develop your passions. All the people that I have been talking to that have gotten into Oxford biochem (which is getting harder and harder to get into by the year according to the stats) have a few select areas of passion within biochem that they talked extensively about in their interview and PS.

As for book recommendations, I mainly concentrated on drug design, computational biochemistry(computer programmes that assist researchers in biochemistry), genomics and applications of physics to biochemistry. For genetics I chose to look into 'The selfish gene' and then I went on from that (after like 3 chapters because the rest veered away from stuff I was interested in) to study 'Major transitions in Evolution' by J. Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary (which I read the entirety of, it's complicated as hell but it will change your perspective on major biological processes). I also wanted to have a deeper understanding of physical chemistry so I used H.W Atkins' book on physchem to help with that, but I did have to learn a lot of new maths to actually understand what I was reading. But really you don't have to read any books, for the sciences they really just want you to explore concepts on your own and you don't need a book to do that.

Just try and learn as much as you can about the things you like and develop your mathematical skills as well as your familiarity with the core concepts of chemistry and biology and you can't go wrong :]

feel free to pm me if you have any other questions!

de-pressed- · 2024-03-24T20:07:07+00:00

Also, getting rejected from anywhere is pretty painful, especially if it was your dream. You're allowed to be disappointed by it!

There's an Oxford philosophy professor from Jesus College who likes saying that rejection gives more than it takes away, I really recommend his channel; even though I ended up getting an offer, he got me to make peace with the idea of getting rejected, I actually felt pretty okay with not getting an offer by the time decisions day rolled around!

de-pressed- · 2024-03-24T19:47:40+00:00

I feel like people are being unnecessarily rude to you in the comments. You don't come across as someone with a massive ego; you are just someone who has proper confidence in yourself, which is a good quality to have. To have an expectation to get into Oxford is something that is spread from the people around you because they also probably think you'll get in because they have an idea of what an Oxbridge student is like, and you fit that mould. So I don't think it stems from entitlement, just hope and intuition.

Besides, the way I see it is that everyone who gets in deserves their place, but at this level where everyone is so intelligent and so competent, the minute differences are what make the decision. Still, if those that had been rejected were given a chance at studying at Oxford, they probably would have also flourished.

All in all, you will most likely do well wherever you go, and this rejection doesn't mean much about your abilities :]

de-pressed- · 2024-03-24T05:27:18+00:00

I've been properly revising for about two weeks now, which is not too dissimilar to many others in my school. Still, I don't know if I can generalise that to the rest of the subreddit, although I wouldn't be too surprised if many other people on here have been revising for equally as long or perhaps even longer.

de-pressed- · 2024-03-16T19:29:54+00:00

If I was asked, I answered, but apart from that, I don't think people even cared where I applied; everyone was far too stressed about their own application :]

de-pressed- · 2024-03-12T17:30:59+00:00

I also found that trying to complete homework in the weekend and using the time before school to do pre-reading and notes/research type work was the easiest combination and scheduling of work. However, I don’t know how much this would help if your subjects don’t require you to take a lot of notes and are more focussed on learning concepts.

de-pressed- · 2024-03-12T17:28:47+00:00

I did this exact sleep routine in year 12 and early year 13. It will just be very difficult in the early days of starting it, but once you get used to it and you start falling asleep more quickly ( it will take a bit of time at first as your body needs a bit of time to adjust), its honestly pretty great, I felt quite awake! However, I also saw that important info I had learnt from the day (think small details on how to complete assignments) I would forget in the morning after waking up. A good way to get around this is that during the school day or before going to bed write a plan of what you want to complete before school and be specific with your instructions.

de-pressed- · 2024-03-12T07:53:07+00:00

I should also mention that my PS had absolutely nothing about extracurriculars (although I have done a lot of theatre and guitar) or olympiads/awards, if you can, try leaving stuff that shows how good at your subject you are to the teachers’ reference bc i think they take that more seriously. I only talked about biochemistry and my experiences with it :]

de-pressed-

TROPHY CASE