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- Studying with the School of Medicine
Watch medical student Sion Roberts discuss the benefits of online courses on YouTube.
I was originally directed to the FutureLearn online MOOC website by my lower sixth form tutor who had an interest in online and technology enhanced learning. He suggested that we all take some time to browse the website and look for a topic we were interested in to gain a head-start into a career choice we may want to take up. This is where I found the Exploring Anatomy – The Human Abdomen course.
I already had an interest in anatomy and had learnt the bone and a few muscle names using a mobile app and really enjoyed it. I decided to take up the course to further develop my understanding of undergraduate-level anatomy and to gain a head-start to learning the material in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and found it incredibly useful to refer to in my later studies. The live drawings of each of the systems with audio commentary really helped in visualising the systems and made learning details of each system a lot easier.
Dr Pickering taught the course with a lot of enthusiasm and which made it very engaging and easy to follow. I also enjoyed the clinical discussions and videos featuring surgeons and clinicians that were interspersed throughout the course to apply context to the body systems. I later sat the corresponding examination and gained the Exploring Anatomy – The Human Abdomen certificate. When it came to later applying for university, I narrowed down my choices to those which offered a cadaveric dissection because I strongly believed this was the best way to learn anatomy.
When I discovered that the University of Leeds, who offered the course, provided this facility, the course I sat online was enough to sway my decision to apply for medicine at the University of Leeds. I was not surprised to find that anatomy is taught with just as much enthusiasm to the medical students as on the FutureLearn MOOC. I found the course incredibly enjoyable and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in anatomy or someone who is interested in or currently studying medicine.
Find out more about the University's online courses.