An early 6am wake up was required for the 3 hour journey ahead to trial Medicine on Saturday the 4th February, 2017.
My dad drove me to Cambridge and as we arrived early, I had the opportunity to do some sight seeing of the local area.
Then at 11am I walked into the ground of Cambridge University to the Lady Mitchell Hall, where I was signed in and given a wrist band, and escorted to the back of the lecture hall. It was already so full of people, there were extra seats placed against the back walls where I sat.
The first lecture was called "How blood goes round the body" presented by Dr Dunecan Massey. I found this lecture very interesting, however extremely hard to keep up with. It required further knowledge of biology and physics that I did not know- so my notes on this lecture are very messy! It was evident that the lecturer was very clever and clearly knew what he was talking about (I hope I'll be like that one day!) He spoke about the 2 theories of blood: purple Nutritive and red diffusive, veins-collecting system, arteries-delivering system, organ perfusion, cardiac output...etc, as well as the people behind the discoveries! 
At 12noon, the second lecture began called "Nature's Medicine Cabinet: from root to remedy" by Ms Sonja Dunbar. This was probably my favourite lecture as it was easier to understand and was interactive with the audience. We learnt about the 'Scarcity-Accessibility Hypothesis' and basically how nettles, lemons, mustard plants, aloe vera... etc are used to treat or cause medical side effects. Some students were chosen to smell and guess different natural remedies, and there were several opportunities for us as students to discuss questions and answers such as how much it costs to develop a drug from idea to market (answer: £1.2billion!) What I found most interesting was how Chilli's (capasaicin) are structurally similar to vanilla, and how the spice is detected by humans but not birds (and why that is).
We then had a lunch break at 1pm where chocolate was given and I was able to meet up with a few of my friends who also went along and discussed the master class thus far.
Then promptly at 1:30pm the final lecture began on "Pain and lessons from the naked mole-rat" by Dr Ewan Smith. This talk was about pharmacology - the study of how chemical agents affect biological systems, as well as nocioception and the experimentation with naked-mole rats. It was found that the mole-rats did not detect acid as painful, and Cambridge university carried out research as to why this was. We were also shown a very cute video of how the mole-rats lived within the university- no abuse of course!
Then lastly at 2:30pm Dr Smith then invited current university students to the stage where they informed us how to apply to Cambridge, tips and advise, as well as an open Q&A with the audience on their life at university and extra course information. The day then came to a close at 3:15pm officially, but the students were kind enough to stay behind and answer any other questions that we had.
Over all, the master class was highly informative and really gave an insight into university life and how fascinating medicine is.
I found this event through their website and the total cost for the ticket was £20. However, Medicine isn't the only Master Class offered as there are so many available to try. I would definitely recommend it to students who are unsure of what they want to study, or just want to test themselves of suitability.
Link to Master Classes here
Thanks Cambridge University for the incredible opportunity!
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