Pre-arrival information for new masters students

Welcome to the University of Sheffield! Congratulations on securing your place to study with us in the School of Biosciences - we can’t wait to meet you! On this page you’ll find lots of useful information and tasks to complete to make your transition to Sheffield as smooth as possible.

On

Your checklist

Complete your registration

The first thing you need to do is complete your registration.

Register as a student

Welcome message

Dear student,

Welcome to the University of Sheffield! Congratulations on securing your place to study with us in the School of Biosciences. On this page you’ll find lots of useful information and tasks to complete to make your transition to Sheffield as smooth as possible.

We know it’s a busy and exciting time for you, and we want to make preparing for starting your masters as straightforward as possible. You’ll be receiving lots of information about all the exciting university-wide activities that all students can get involved with once you arrive.

This pre-arrival page is just for new Biosciences students where you’ll find information and tasks to complete, specific to you and your course. We’ll be adding information to this page right up until you arrive so be sure to keep checking back.

Welcome Week event

We’re holding a Welcome Week event on Tuesday 23 September, 1pm - 3pm in Firth Hall, Firth Court (Google Maps / Apple Maps). Here we’ll introduce the School of Biosciences and our MSc courses, with opportunities to meet course leads and fellow students. Our Professional Services team members will also be available to help you so you can get any questions you have answered, too. 

This session will ensure you get the best start to your time at Sheffield. Don’t worry if you know that you’ll be arriving late as you’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet everyone during your course specific welcome events.

If you have any problems accessing the information on this site or completing the tasks, or you know you’ll be arriving in Sheffield late, please get in touch with your name, registration number and programme of study, using the details below.

Myself and the rest of the postgraduate team cannot wait to meet you!

Dr Dave Turton
Director of PGT programmes

Choose your modules

At the beginning of September, you’ll receive an email asking you to select your optional modules using online module selection as part of your pre-registration tasks. A link to the Online Module Choice system will also appear within the pre-registration system.

When choosing your modules, you need to make sure you have a balance of credits across semesters. Taking all optional modules in the same semester will give you a very large workload alongside labs, skills modules and other academic tasks.

If you studied your undergraduate degree at the University of Sheffield, you cannot choose a postgraduate module that’s linked to one you’ve taken as an undergraduate student.

Details of the core modules you’ll study, and the optional modules available to you, can be found in our student handbook.

Explore and choose your modules

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact your Course Director to discuss your choices.

Please note that this doesn’t apply to MSc Science Communication students where all your modules are core.

Course-specific information (including Welcome Week timetable)

Please check out your specific course area below which contains information and tasks related to your chosen programme, including course welcome sessions and recommended reading.

Biomedical Science MSc students - we’d like you to select some research project options by Friday 19 September. You can find more information below.

MSc Biodiversity and Conservation

Biodiversity and Conservation MSc welcome session

Date: Monday 29 September
Time: 10.00
Location: Seminar room B79, Richard Roberts Building 
Get directions via Google Maps / Apple Maps

Please note that this session is in addition to the School-wide welcome event.

Course Director: Dr Tom Webb t.j.webb@sheffield.ac.uk

Recommended reading

There’s no specific pre-course reading list, but we've put together some suggestions of popular science books that we like and which cover some of the major issues that the course tackles. There’s absolutely no requirement or expectation that you read all (or any!) of these, but they’re all interesting and relatively light reads:

For more general information on climate change (which underpins a lot of conservation issues), the IPCC’s summary reports - e.g. the report for policy makers - are very useful, available here (external link).

For very useful short videos explaining key concepts in ecology and conservation, Bill Sutherland’s Conservation Concepts YouTube channel is excellent.

The modules that you’ll take on the course all have their own set of reading that will be introduced during the lectures. Almost all of this is from the primary scientific literature, so you may want to keep an eye out for conservation-related papers appearing in journals - you might come across these in science / environment news stories, but it’s good to get in the habit of following these up and tracing the source. 

The Conversation is another good place to check regularly. This covers a wide range of topics but all articles are written by academics with support from journalists, and they’ll usually include links to the primary literature they’re covering. The most relevant section would be Environment (external link).

For other skills, we teach quantitative skills in the statistical computing environment R, using RStudio. We have a good system for teaching this from complete beginners up to advanced level over the year - so you don’t need to do anything in advance, although there are loads of R resources online if you do want to have a go. I’d recommend looking at the R4All website which is run by two of the people who run our course.

MSc Biomedical Science

Biomedical Science MSc welcome session

Date: Monday 29 September
Time: 2pm - 3pm
Location: LT08, Arts Tower
Get directions via Google Maps / Apple Maps

Please note that this session is in addition to the School-wide welcome event.

Course Directors: Dr Anne-Gaelle Borycki (a.g.borycki@sheffield.ac.uk) and Dr Steve Brown (stephen.brown@sheffield.ac.uk)

Your course handbook

2025/26 MSc Biomedical Science course handbook (PDF, 5.53MB)

Your course handbook is packed with information about your masters course and is the place where you’ll be able to find answers to most of the questions you have. We recommend that you spend some time having a read through the handbook before you start your course. This is a live document and we do update this from time to time, but we’ll always alert you to any significant changes.

Please note that some elements might not be accessible until you’ve completed registration and signed in with your University of Sheffield account.

Research projects

On page 18 of the course handbook you’ll find a list of all the projects offered as part of your MSc course, grouped by themes. Before you arrive in Sheffield, please:

  • Review the available projects and note down the three themes that contain projects that interest you.
  • Please complete our Google Form indicating your preferences by Friday 19 September.

Your MSc research project will be allocated to you at the start of your course.

If you have any problems accessing the Google Form, or any questions about research projects, please get in touch with Dr Anne-Gaelle Borycki or Dr Steve Brown.

Recommended reading

We often receive queries from students wanting to know how they can prepare for the course before they arrive such as pre-reading. Our recommendation is to use Molecular Biology of the Cell by Bruce Alberts.

The 4th Edition can be browsed online here (external link).

Depending on your previous academic training, you may need to review the following topics and recommended reading:

  • Chapter 1 Cells and Genomes
  • Chapter 3 Proteins
  • Chapter 4 DNA, Chromosomes, and Genomes
  • Chapter 6 How Cells Read the Genome: From DNA to Protein
  • Chapter 7 Control of Gene Expression
  • Chapter 8 Analysing Cells, Molecules, and Systems

The following is reading that’s more pathway-specific:

  • Chapter 9 Visualizing Cells (Cell Biology and Drug Development)
  • Chapter 15 Cell Signalling (Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Cell Biology and Drug Development)
  • Chapter 20 Cancer (Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Cell Biology and Drug Development)
  • Chapter 21 Development of Multicellular (Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine)
  • Chapter 22 Stem Cells and Tissue Renewal (Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine)
MSc Human and Molecular Genetics

Human and Molecular Genetics MSc welcome session

Date: Friday 26 September
Time: 1pm - 3pm
Location: Lecture theatre 07, Hicks Building
Get directions via Google Maps / Apple Maps

Please note that this session is in addition to the School-wide welcome event.

Course Director: Dr Dave Turton david.turton@sheffield.ac.uk

Recommended reading

We often receive queries from students wanting to know how they can prepare for the course before they arrive such as pre-reading. You’ll be taught everything in your modules as you go along but some students find it helpful to refresh their knowledge of the following themes that we’ll be using in the laboratory in semester one.

  • Making solutions: Molar calculations (V1C1=V2C2, Moles=Mass/mw, serial dilutions etc)
  • Molecular biology: Performing DNA restriction digests, DNA ligations, bacterial transformations, agarose gel electrophoresis, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), SDS-PAGE and western blotting
  • CRISPR

If you just can’t wait to get started, you’re very welcome (but not required) to check out the following resources to familiarise yourself with some of the clinical themes you could encounter in your MSc: 

You may also find it useful to check out the website for the Julia Garnham Centre to find out more about the amazing work carried out here by students and what to expect from your own NHS placement.

MSc Molecular Biology and Biotechnology

Molecular Biology and Biotechnology MSc welcome session

Date: Friday 26 September
Time: 2pm
Location: Seminar room DB13,  Bartolome House
Get directions via Google Maps / Apple Maps

Please note that this session is in addition to the School-wide welcome event.

Course Director: Dr Qaiser I Sheikh q.i.sheikh@sheffield.ac.uk

Recommended reading

It would be useful for you to start reading background material covering the following topics:

  • Understanding of microbiology
  • Basics of DNA, RNA, proteins
  • Understanding of genes, the processes of replication, transcription and translation
  • Understanding of gene cloning e.g. its uses and how it can be done
  • Understanding of gene structure and function e.g how gene function (genetic switch) and its control by operators, promoters and repressors in different organisms
  • Biotechnology: its types and applications 

YouTube is a great place to start - most of the prestigious journals such as Nature Methods have a channel, and the University of Utah has a brilliant 'learn genetics' site to brush up on the basics. Importantly, read what interests you. If you love it you’ll learn it effectively!

The following series of JoVE films (external website) are useful for understanding technical scientific language and the subject matter that you can discuss in more detail with your tutors.

This open educational resource (OER) is suitable if you're wanting to develop your experimental skills: Cat burglars, yeast races, and other hypothesis-driven bioscience practicals

Please feel free to contact me if you need any further information, and keep me updated.

MSc Science Communication

Science Communication MSc welcome session

Date: The date for this session will be confirmed soon - please keep checking back.
Time: 11am - 12pm
Location: Lecture theatre F20, Hicks Building
Get directions via Google Maps / Apple Maps

Please note that this session is in addition to the School-wide welcome event.

Course Director: Dr Tori Herridge v.herridge@sheffield.ac.uk

Recommended reading

There are no set texts for this course, or for pre-course reading. Instead we want you to take responsibility for seeking out interesting and topical science stories on a regular basis, and for learning from others’ science communication practice through critical engagement. So to kick-start this journey, please take the next few weeks to explore sci comm and science journalism. 

Please also come to the welcome session prepared to discuss: 

(i) one piece of science communication. This can be a book, article, TV programme, documentary, podcast, radio series, social media account, online video, video game, policy document, whatever you choose (as long as you can say something about it!).

Can you:

  • summarise it (briefly, 1-2 sentences!)?
  • say what you liked about it?
  • say what you would do differently (if anything)?

(ii) a recent piece of science news that you found interesting. This should be a science story published *within the last month* that was covered by mainstream/digital media. 

Can you try to:

  • summarise it (briefly, 1-2 sentences! Include topic, who wrote it, and where was it published)?
  • explain what captured your interest?
  • identify and find the original source for the article (this could be a scientific paper, press release, event)?

Don’t worry, this wont be assessed – it’s just to give us loads of interesting things to talk about from day one, and will be very informal.

We are really looking forward to meeting you at the welcome session, and jumping headlong with you into the wonderful world of science communication!

Useful information

Biosciences student handbook

Access the Biosciences student handbook here

The Biosciences student handbook is packed with information about studying in the School and is the place where you’ll be able to find answers to most of the questions you have around modules, assessments, and teaching methods, as well as information on how to access academic and pastoral support.

Please note that this won't be accessible until you’ve completed registration and signed in with your University of Sheffield account.

Your timetable

Your timetable is unique to you, based on the optional modules that you choose to study. This will be finalised once you complete your registration and after this time, you’ll be able to access your specific timetable through the iSheffield app.

LinkedIn group

To give you a chance to meet and speak to other students starting their masters in the School this autumn, we’ve set up a LinkedIn group. Please join us, introduce yourself and use this space to chat to other offer holders and Biosciences staff.

Request to join the LinkedIn group

Contact us

If you have any problems working through these pre-arrival tasks or you know that you’ll be arriving late to Sheffield in September, please let us know.

Email our Postgraduate Student Support Team on: biosciences.ug.pgt@sheffield.ac.uk.

Please include your name, programme of study and registration number (if you know it).

Follow our LinkedIn to learn about our research: 

Faculty of Science LinkedIn

Useful links

Information for new students

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