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Student Services are here to support you throughout your time at University of St Andrews.
>>NACHITEK: MSc Research is one of the best degrees you can do. This is a one-year research course, and it prepares you very well for the PhD. And if you think that you do not want to spend much time doing a PhD after MRes, since you have gained a lot of laboratory experience, you can go and join any of the scientific community, maybe in medicinal chemistry lab or any of a polymer chemistry lab.
The community was quite internationally diverse, and I thought that could be a nice place for me to grow as a person as well, and to also communicate with the other people as well, because here we have a lot of collaboration. We collaborate with physics, we collaborate with chemistry, we collaborate with physical chemistry aspects, with biology.
In terms of lab, we are given a lot of freedom from our supervisors. We are allowed to try different experiments. We are allowed to contribute in other aspects as well. Our ideas are equally supported here and we have got excellent facilities. This MSC research programme trained me with all the advanced organic techniques to interpret the results, to design a problem, how to solve a problem.
>>CARINA: So what I wanted is to work really one year on my own project, focus on the research part of it, which will also be coming later in the PhD as well. The academic part, it can be really challenging. It can be really frustrating. But when you then finally have a compound that you've worked for several months and it's really nice and like a little highlight that you actually achieve what you were working for for so long.
I've not had a lot of experience in the lab beforehand, so I was maybe a little anxious in the beginning. But the help here you get is really great. So, in our group, there are a lot of PhDs, and a postdoc who are helping a lot, who showed me everything in the beginning.
>>MICHEL: One of the biggest appeals to me for choosing the MRes was, well, first of all, the versatility of the research that it offers in the sense that you get to get a lot of hands-on experience, both in writing, reading, presenting, communicating and going to conferences. You've kind of got control over your own research and your own time. It really helps you branch out and appreciate everything that this town has to offer.
>>CARINA: Living here is amazing. I love the lifestyle. The people here are really, really nice. The town is really small, but that's what makes it actually so nice because there are a lot of different student activities. And I joined several societies. I've joined the whisky society here and I've been every two weeks on the whisky tasting here. I've joined the Celtic Society. So I started to learn Gaelic with them and also Scottish country dancing. I've joined the book club as well, for example. And also here in the tennis club. Having a really great group here in the chemistry building and we do a lot of things together.
It's amazing how international it is. There are so many different nationalities here in St Andrews. I enjoyed the May Dip a lot. The May Dip was definitely one of my highlights here, and we had the perfect weather this year. And also the travelling side. So I did quite some travelling here through Scotland, some trips, here in the area of Fife and Scotland in general.
>>NACHITEK: The libraries are very nice. Especially the St Mary Library. There is a nice wee garden, and in the summer I like to go there. And in the evening I like to go there and have a coffee with my friends. On the West Sands is a nice beach. The East Sands is also very nice. I sometimes like to go there for a run.
And the town is very nice. You have got different shops, different coffee shops, and it is a very nice experience here.
>>CARINA: There are a lot of universities in big towns, but St Andrews is something different. It's really special. It has a special community. You get to know people that really, are friendships for a really long time, hopefully.
St Andrews itself as a site, it's just really, really special to live here. And I don't think you will ever get the students' experience somewhere else.
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