Congratulations on securing your place to study biosciences at Manchester! We're delighted that you've chosen us for your studies.

We know you'll have lots of questions about preparing for your studies and what will happen once the semester starts. You can find information relating to your level of study at the links below.

Welcome message from the Head of School

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on securing your place at Manchester. Whichever course you are starting this September, you will benefit from high-quality teaching, a wide range of sources of support, and encouragement to follow your passion as you take the next step towards achieving your goals.

In the School of Biological Sciences, our lectures, practical classes and tutorials are delivered through face-to-face, on-campus teaching, supplemented with online resources to support self-directed learning.

If you are an undergraduate student, you will be taught the key topics covered by your course through lecture units. In your lectures, you will also have the opportunity to engage in discussion with teaching staff and participate in question-and-answer activities. These face-to-face teaching sessions are supplemented by online resources, which will help you explore the topics covered in more depth.

This format of teaching will help you engage more deeply with your course and help you to develop the critical analysis skills that will become increasingly important as you progress through your degree. You will also benefit from practical classes which will help you develop the fundamental experimental skills that you will need to carry out complex degree-specific experiments later in your course.

You will be assigned an academic advisor, a member of staff who will also be your academic tutor in Year 1. Your academic advisor will meet with you twice a semester to discuss how you are progressing and mentor you throughout your entire degree. As your academic tutor, they also meet with you regularly in your tutorial groups. These sessions will help you develop the skills and confidence needed to tackle your specific degree programmes, write essays, develop presentation skills and succeed at Manchester.

For our postgraduate students, activities such as workshops, tutorials and seminars will be used to dive deeper into the subject material and will also provide opportunities for question-and-answer sessions. Research projects provide opportunities to have in-depth discussions with our academics and researchers – who you will work alongside on challenging, cutting-edge topics - so your experience will be interactive and unique.

We of course care deeply about the welfare and learning of every one of our students. We have an excellent student support network in the School of Biological Sciences which includes your programme director, senior advisors, academic advisors and tutors, and a dedicated student support team. We strongly encourage you to contact these services to help resolve any problems that might arise during your degree.

We are very much looking forward to meeting you in September. We encourage you to explore the resources available on our Welcome website to help you prepare for starting your course. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions.

Congratulations again on your achievement, and we'll see you soon!

Professor Simon Hubbard
Vice-Dean, Head of School of Biological Sciences