Your Options as a Third Year Chemist

Bit of a weird and selective for chemists first blog post but seeing as I am a second year now and third year lends itself to a huge array of options it has dominated quite a bit of my time in my term 1.

Year 3 is where things turn interesting for you as a Chemist as you now have a tonne of options at your disposal. In my third year I expect to only have lectures in terms 1 & 2 and no labs, where my exams will be at the end of term 2 and term 3 will be left for longer lab sessions.

Your first option is stay at Warwick for all three terms, do the exams term 2 and then the labs term 3, which do differ depending if you are on the MChem or BSc degree stream.

Instead of staying in Warwick term 3 you also have the option to complete a project in a partner university overseas, I personally have my sight set on Australia, which is an amazing opportunity to experience a new culture and see different parts of the world. An opportunity I’m not sure you’d get again so easily.

However, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous you can do the whole year 3 in a partner university overseas in places like Sweden, Singapore, Italy, Austria and more. Again and incredibly opportunity to explore the world and have some amazing life experiences exploring and studying hard at the same time.

Another option is to undertake a Year in Industry placement, which would involve working at a company as a placement student for the whole year. This can be done in an integrated fashion, where you will do the core modules all year three Chemists do or intercalated which is effectively a year out of university but you will complete year 3 upon the completion of the placement. This provides incredible experience and will make you stand out from the crowd at job interviews post university but it is quite a daunting experience leaving university behind for a year.

I would say each option presented to you has its disadvantages and advantages which I could go into more detail but I feel like I’ve rambled on enough for one blog post! Good luck to those still applying for places, keeping going!