Your first weeks at university involve more logistics than science. This is a short orientation to the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology — the things returning students wish someone had told them in week one.

Get your registration right

Complete both your fee payment and your online course registration, and keep confirmation of each. Check that every course on your registration is one you are actually attending, and that the credit total matches what your programme requires. Errors are much easier to correct in week two than in examination week.

Know where to go

Find the Departmental office early and note its opening hours — it handles registration queries, results issues, letters and most administrative problems. Identify your lecture theatres and teaching laboratories before your first class, and find out who your academic counsellor or level coordinator is.

The laboratory is different from the lecture hall

Practicals require preparation. Read the protocol before you arrive, wear the required laboratory coat and closed shoes, and never eat, drink or work alone in a laboratory. Learn where the eyewash station, fire extinguisher and first-aid kit are on your first day. Write your results down as you obtain them — not afterwards from memory.

Study habits that actually work

  • Keep up weekly. Biochemistry is cumulative; a topic left unresolved in September becomes a serious problem in December.
  • Work in small groups. Explaining a pathway to someone else is the fastest way to discover you do not yet understand it.
  • Use the library and online databases. Textbooks give you the framework; papers show you how the science is actually done.
  • Ask questions early. Lecturers hold office hours precisely for this, and no question at Level 100 is too basic.

Look ahead

You do not need to know your specialism yet, but it helps to know where the programme leads: advanced molecular biology, enzymology, cell biology and metabolism in later years, a research project in your final year, and from there graduate study, research, industry, clinical laboratories or teaching. Browse the faculty profiles to see the range of research going on around you.

Welcome to the Department.

news