Duration: 02:25mins
Transcript
My name is Alice Rose and I'm studying at the University of Birmingham and I'm doing a Master's in Health Research, sometimes called the MRes.
My course is to get an understanding of health research. You can choose different modules actually on what you want to do and we have to do compulsory modules which is like research methods and project management, and then you have option modules which are to help you gain more knowledge about your thesis.
So the biggest part of our course is the research project and that takes up the majority of your time, depending on if you're a part-time student or a full time student. So for example I've chosen to do the Mixed Methods module as my chosen option because I'm doing a Mixed Methods design in my research project.
Currently I'm doing an on-campus course which is Mixed Methods and that's delivered by lectures over a period of a week and we do some group work within that but a lot of it is lecture based. I was quite keen on coming to Birmingham because of the shape of the course and it was distance learning and it was possible to do that, also that you can do it part-time because I didn't want to leave my clinical practice for a whole year. So you can do full time or part-time on the MRes course.
The main differences between undergraduate and postgraduate in relation to the MRes course, it's more of self-directed learning and the amount we have to do. The MRes course is very much distance learning and therefore you have to do a lot of background reading yourself to help you with the essays. You know, you can easily be at home doing a lot of your study rather than actually on campus, so I've had to be very good on myself to make sure I give myself enough time to do the reading and really motivate myself, which I knew before I came to the course, which I actually quite enjoy.
I would say also the style of writing and also the choices you make while at university. You've really got to try and challenge yourself. As an undergrad I would always take the easiest option because it's hard enough being at university and having those challenges. I know now at Master's level I've got to take that one further step up and really challenge myself and pick more of the difficult choices because I know I'll learn a lot more.
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