What it's Like to Study a Degree in Neuroscience?

written by Ana

I applied for a Master’s degree in Clinical, Social and Cognitive Neuroscience at City, University of London in London, UK back in the spring of 2021 and got accepted to start the full-time programme in September 2021.

So it has now been over a year of studying neuroscience, I have submitted my final year project and waiting for the results to come in any time this week.

I thought I will share my experience studying for a neuroscience degree, how was it like in terms of course content, how difficult it was and did I like it at all.

How did I get into neuroscience?

In high school I did A levels Biology, Chemistry and Maths and studied Biomedical Sciences for my bachelor’s degree at the University of Westminster in London, UK.

From the beginning, I wanted to get into research but didn’t like working in a Cancer Pathology lab during my summer research internship.

I then had a 4-year break from higher education and was exploring various career paths and worked in operations, but my real passion was for health writing.

I became a freelance health writer working for content production agencies and started writing on mental health topics. I was also struggling with my own mental health during the covid pandemic and wanted to learn more about it.

I started reading to try to understand how our brain works in health and disease and learning about different theories but it was hard to do it on my own.

I also liked my career as a health writer but instead of writing on a variety of topics, I wanted to specialise in one field.

I considered a degree in Psychology for a while but after reading a book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ by Daniel Goleman, where he discusses groundbreaking brain and behavioral research, I realized that my interest leans towards a study of the human brain – neuroscience.

So, I spent a few months figuring out what can you do with a neuroscience degree, how long will it take me to become a neuroscientist working on my own research and what qualifications I need to apply.

It was also a childhood dream of mine to be able to conduct my own research and even though I didn’t like working as a research assistant in the cancer pathology lab, I decided to give it a go hoping that I won’t need to wear a lab coat!

Finally, I have always known that I want to continue my education and once I figured out what I want to study, I applied for a degree in neuroscience!

What is my course about?

I study towards a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Clinical, Social and Cognitive Neuroscience. So, essentially, the course covers three major disciplines in neuroscience:

Clinical – learning about mental health and neurological, psychological and psychiatric illnesses

Social – studying how our brain works when we communicate, feel, learn and interact with other people

Cognitive – getting to know about human cognitive functions such as memory, perception and language in healthy and clinical settings

So, what is it like to study neuroscience?

Overall, studying a general course in neuroscience is very interesting yet hard because you get to learn about brain anatomy, human cognitive functions, get hands-on experience with research techniques like EEG, GSR, and qualitative methods but, at the same time, you have to learn how to code to design experiments and analyse the data.

So, from my experience, even though I had a background in Biomedical sciences and worked in medical editing where I had to be familiar with medical and scientific terminology, with a couple of years of freelance writing on health topics behind my back, it was hard to study neuroscience.

That’s why many people with a psychology background who then pursue a degree in neuroscience say it’s harder than they thought it will be.

Now, let me talk about the discipline itself and what was my course like.

I will describe what was my degree like in terms of content, difficulty and enjoyability.

Let’s start with the content!

Content

What modules did I have?

The full-time Master’s course in Clinical, Social and Cognitive Neuroscience runs from September to September and has 3 terms. In Terms 1 and 2 we had 8 modules in total (4 modules each term) that were worth 15 credits each, these were the modules:

Principles of Neuroscience: Brain anatomy, techniques and paradigms
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Mental Health, Wellbeing and Neuroscience
Fundamental Processes in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology 1
Fundamental Processes in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology 2
Social Cognition and the Social Brain
Research Methods and Programming
Statistics Models

How were the modules assessed?

Here’s a list of the assessments that we had to do:

Essays
Group Presentations
Individual Presentations
Portfolio
In class test
Programming Project
Research Proposal
Final Year Project

In this video, Adriana and I go over assessments that we have to do during a normal week of studying:

In the 3rd term, which runs throughout summer, you get to work on your own research project and have to write a dissertation that should not exceed 10,000 words.

In your write up you have to write about your research question, aims and hypotheses, methods, results of your experiment, discuss your findings and draw conclusions.

That is usually due at the end of September or if you are a part-time student, then you submit your final year project in December.

How was the course content delivered?

Each module consisted of a 2-hour long lecture every week alternating between online and in-person.

Usually, in the first hour, the lecturer delivers the new material and then we had a seminar where we were discussing a new research paper or an outstanding question in neuroscience.

We can also ask any questions that we have.

So as a full-time student I was attending two lectures on Monday from 10am to 3pm with a lunch break from 12 to 1pm.

Then, two more lectures on Tuesday at the same time. Prior to each lecture, I had to do some reading to prepare for the seminar or a programming class.

That’s a weekly overview of the content delivered for the Mental Health and Neuroscience module:

So, on average I spent around 4 hours each week just to prepare for the lectures and then another 4 hours after the lectures on Mondays and Tuesdays just to go over the study materials.

The rest of the week, like 30 hours per week, I spent working on the assessments and in January I also started my research internship in the research laboratory in the Psychology Department.

So, if I had to rate it overall, I would give 7 out of 10 for content because I feel that I learned quite a lot in some of the modules and not the others.

Difficulty

Heads down it was one of the hardest things I had to do in my life. Mostly because of the Research Methods and Programming module where we basically had to learn programming to run experiments and analyze data with zero coding experience!

Although I knew there would be an element of stats in neuroscience, I didn’t expect that we would need to learn how to code! Here’s what the admission letter said:

‘Please note that the course has a strong numerical/statistical component so please carefully read the attached letter and by accepting the offer you acknowledge that you have the required statistics skills necessary to succeed within the course.’

Just to give you an idea of what I had to learn in this module, just have a look at the screenshot of the module handbook:

On top of that, you still have to prepare for the other 3 modules and work on the assessments on a weekly basis.

Reading and analyzing research articles is complicated enough on its own and on top of that learning how to code in programming software made studying towards this degree very difficult.

So, on a scale from 1 to 10 I would say that studying neuroscience is very hard – 10 out of 10.

Enjoyability

In two words, studying neuroscience was very enjoyable! You get a chance to learn how your brain and nervous system work, explore the history, theories and paradigms in neuroscience.

It was also interesting to study brain anatomy, you get to learn about the location of brain areas and their function.

I really liked it when we had guest lecturers come in. Some of them work in academia and conduct their own research in different fields of neuroscience while others have clinical careers.

It was also nice to get to know the lecturers at my uni. They made us feel welcomed and we could always come in for a drop-in session if we had any questions or write them an email.

However, I wish that there had been more guidance from supervisors when it came to choosing our final year projects and more assistance when running our own experiments.

Working on the research project on your own can make you feel lonely especially if you do it online.

Overall, I can say that it was very enjoyable to study along with like-minded individuals, learn about their interests and long-term plans while becoming friends in the meantime!

So, overall, I would give it 8 out of 10 for enjoyability.

Thank you for reading this blog post and we hope you found it useful!

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Better awareness, better results

A&A

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Hi there!

Thank you for stopping by! We are neuroscientists by day and digital creators by night who are passionate about self-development, personal growth and a healthy mindset. 🧠

We met when studying Master’s degree in Clinical, Social and Cognitive Neuroscience at City, University of London and instantly realised that we had a lot in common!

Let’s see what it is! ➡️