Review of Personal Development of Scientific Skills for Laboratory Work
I chose to study Applied Science at *** College as I had a general goal of working in science, with no
specific area in mind. I have since decided that I want to work in the medical field, so I am choosing
the Biomedical Science pathway for my second year at college. To be successful in a medical career, I
will need to study at university; the courses I am considering are Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Cancer Sciences, Neuroscience or Medicine. Any of these courses will
require me to carry out practical work in the lab and therefore many skills I am developing during
this course will be beneficial for my future. Some of the key skills needed in these fields would
include recording measurements and presenting data, producing graphs and analysing results. I
intend to choose the biomedical science pathway next year which will give me some background
knowledge and skills needed for university. This course will also allow me to accumulate sufficient
UCAS points to meet the entry requirements of these courses. Most require either 112 or 128 UCAS
points, which would require me to achieve DDM or DMM in my current course. The termly reviews
on my student eILP allow me to monitor my progress and see that I am on track to achieve the
necessary grades – having been graded at distinction in each progress review this year I am
confident that I will have the grades necessary for my university of choice and will continue to work
towards this goal. To ensure that I meet the requirements, I will complete all my assignments
following the pass, merit and distinction criteria to give me the greatest possibility of attaining high
grades. I also intend to revise thoroughly for my exams and start this in plenty of time. For the unit 1
and unit 3 exams this year I felt I had left my revision too late and could not revise each topic
thoroughly, leaving me feeling unprepared on the days of the exams – next year I will begin my
revision earlier. To further prepare myself for university and my career, I am applying for work
experience with the NHS in general surgery, where I would observe healthcare professionals during
medical on-call, ward rounds, clinics and meetings. I believe this placement would be a valuable
opportunity for me to experience the work-life in a medical setting as well as a great addition to my
CV and personal statement. I plan to participate in another NHS work experience placement the
following year, to gain more experience.
A key skill that I needed to develop during this course was time management. Handing in
assignments on time as well as balancing exam revision, other college work, a part-time job and
other commitments was very difficult to begin with and my assignments were often left until the last
minute. I had to improve my time management to ensure that I completed all my assignments in
plenty of time as well as to a high standard. Having multiple assignments set at once made this more
difficult as I often focused on one assignment over the other, leaving the other to be rushed close to
the deadline. I learned to manage this problem by working on each assignment for one hour each
day, this meant that all assignments progressed at roughly the same rate and none needed to be
rushed. This method turned out to be very successful as spending a shorter amount of time on each
assignment stopped me from getting bored of them and producing work that could have been
better. One strength of mine in college is punctuality, I have arrived on time to all my classes,
however my attendance could be improved. My attendance is 88%, however I have been off due to
having Covid-19 twice during the academic year so this will be reflected in that percentage. I have
not been warned for behaviour or health and safety in classes throughout the year although I know
that my focus could be improved. I believe improving my focus will allow me to write more useful
notes in class, I often find my notes do not help me much with my assignments. Conversely, I did
take feedback on my assignments well and improve my work, consistently achieving higher grades
on my resubmissions where possible.
, My communication has also improved throughout the year, having to work with many different
classmates on different activities and practicals. Moving from secondary school where I had known
all my classmates for 5 years to college where I didn't know anyone boosted my confidence a lot and
helped me develop my interpersonal skills, I am already using this in my part-time work where I have
to talk to many customers every day and will continue to use them in my future when moving to
university and if I work in a clinical healthcare role. Working in small groups for practicals has helped
me to develop my leadership skills as there was many steps to our experiments and we had to
decide who was doing which tasks - I often fall naturally into a leadership role particularly in certain
partnerships where I was the more confident partner. I think it is important that I continue to
develop these leadership skills without seeming controlling or domineering. By taking the ‘16
Personalities’ quiz, I discovered that my personality type is the Mediator. Some strengths of my
personality type are empathy and open-mindedness, qualities which will be valuable to a career in
healthcare. On the other hand, some weaknesses are a lack of focus and self-criticism – I believe
these weaknesses are two which affect me most in my studies. Seeing these weaknesses identified
by someone else will help me to understand why they affect me and try to overcome them. The
‘Learning Style’ quiz confirmed that I am a tactile learner, meaning I benefit from more interactive,
hands-on learning. When I revise for my next exams, I will try including more revision methods like
these to optimise my learning.
My scientific skills were developed during practical work such as the titrations work. I carried out
three titration practicals; an acid-base neutralisation using hydrochloric acid and sodium carbonate,
an acid-base neutralisation with the use of a pH probe, and a determination of the concentration of
copper sulphate solutions using iodometric titrations. Many of the techniques used in these
practicals were completely new to me so there was definitely a learning curve during these
practicals. Using a pH probe was one of these techniques, the process was quite straight forward but
it took time to learn how to calibrate it and there were some issues when using it, such as placing
the probe in water between uses which eventually diluted the solution and meant we had to start
over. One of the most important aspects of titrations is accuracy in measurements – many
measurements must be made for example weighing out reactants and measuring the burette levels,
and any inaccuracies in these can impact the results so greatly that the process must be restarted if
is a minor mistake is made. There are many times in titration practicals that you have to observe a
colour change, this posed some challenges. One issue we encountered was trying to decide when
the colour change was complete, sometimes we disagreed on whether or not more solution needed
to be added, we could improve on this next time by using a colour chart to indicate when the
reaction is complete. Furthermore, when using a burette to add solution and observe a colour
change, it was sometimes difficult to stop the burette from pouring right as the colour changed so
there might have been slight inaccuracies in readings because of this. The results of our titrations
were first recorded in graphs. For one practical, we added our solution at too short intervals which
resulted in a very long table, many results in which were not necessary. I could improve my data
presentation skills in this area by excluding unnecessary results and make sure to follow instructions
more closely. Graphs were also produced for these results to show the equivalence point of the
reaction. In one graph, I draw it too small on my page and it made the graph quite difficult to read
whereas, for another graph, I drew it too large on my page which meant that the very end of the
graph was not included, this area was actually quite important as it showed the plateau at the end of
the reaction. If I were to do these practicals again, I would make sure to plan out the size of my
graph before plotting to use a program such as Microsoft Excel to make a neater, more accurate
graph which will look more professional in my assignment. On this assignment, I got a distinction, so
