Sarah - studying radiotherapy at Herts

I am a mature student changing my career and currently in my first year of my Radiotherapy & Oncology degree. Here are my top five excellent things about this course:

1 - Placements: We have the opportunity of working in three out of nine link hospitals in the practical element of our degree. Instead of 100% theory, we get to take our theory out in to the environment that we will work in in our future. Theory makes sense when it is applied to real life situations. The staff in our link hospitals are really supportive and your first placement is early in the course so it is something to look forward to!

2 - Subject matter: We learn the detail of why cancer behaves the way it does and how some people are more susceptible than others. We learn how we create X-rays and the radiation beams that we use on our patients. We learn and refine our skills to communicate and look after our patients. Our degree is a perfect mix of theory, practical and working with people.

3 - IT and Virtual Reality: I have worked with IT for most of my working life and one of the things that drew me to this career is that we use specialist equipment and IT that we use to perform our role. The Linear Accelerator (LINAC) is the main, and most recognisable, equipment that we use to treat our patients. However, we cannot use the machine to practice so the University has a virtual reality LINAC that we can practice on. It's fantastic to use before we go to placements so we know what we are doing!

4 - Radiotherapy Students: You must be a certain kind of person to want to do this course and the job that follows, so we tend to be chatty, friendly and extremely social! We have a WhatsApp group for the cohort and lots of various ones for study groups. We used to meet up (before the pandemic) and no I can't wait to arrange one when it is possible. I am in first year, but I have wonderful students in the other years that I regularly talk to about what we are studying, what they are deciding to do next and what I can expect for my next year of study.
and last, but certainly not least.....

5 - The Teaching Team: Our teaching team won the Vice-Chancellor's Award for 2020 for the "Team of the Year" and it is easy to see why. All the teaching team are approachable, provide excellent resources for the students to use (especially as we have been online this year), extra sessions for anyone who needs them and basically an "open door" policy for us to ask any questions on the curriculum studied. We also have a personal tutor for any pastoral issues and a link-lecturer specific to the hospital that we have our placements in. This helps us to discuss our experiences and receive support.
I researched my change of career in detail before I decided to apply to the University of Hertfordshire to study Radiotherapy and Oncology. I have had all my expectations met and exceeded for my academic progress. Even the areas that I found challenging were supported and the variety in the course means I am never bored.