>>Sam Smith, Sport Science for Optimal Performance MSc student
>>I chose to come to Kent mainly because I am a local here so it is a good university to commute to. I have also done the undergraduate here I was familiar with the staff and facilities that we have, so that was good and obviously they are very good quality, both the facilities and the staff we have here are all experts in their field so I wanted to work with them. Also the bonus of the discount being a previous student was quite a nice thing to have on top of that. 
>>I chose the programme due to the fact that it was more applied, so there's opportunities to work with athletes in modules such as Applied Athlete Support where you take on an athlete and you work with them through the testing all the way through to providing the training prescription based on the testing results. So I felt that was a real nice natural progression from the undergraduate work I did here which was more sort of theory based.
>>So the programme is quite challenging in ways where you are required to do a lot of work in quite a short space of time, so I won't lie there are quite a few modules which do go on at once and have quite a lot of work with them so as I mentioned before on the Applied Athlete Support, you are required to take on an athlete. The same with other modules as well, where you have to do that so that you have only got a year to complete the course and you have got several modules and a dissertation to complete in that time and that is probably the biggest challenge. 
>>So the Master's touched on various elements of sports science, such as your physiology, nutrition, your psychology and as I mentioned the applied athlete support work. Most of these are coursework based, so you produce sort of essays of 3,000 words based on the work you have done throughout the term or based on a particular topic. Some of them may be like a verbal exam as well to accompany that but there's no actual written exams during the course and then at the very end you sort of complete your own project which is based on a dissertation and you look at work of your chosen area, whatever that may be. 
>>So we have two sort of bases for facilities here at Kent, the first one being here at Medway Park, so behind me I have got a physiology lab and you can see various bits of equipment which we can use ranging from treadmills to different bikes, an altitude chamber, a dynamometer so you have got range of equipment up here. There is also more seminar, teaching-based labs down on the campus and they can be used for various means of biomechanics, psychology and just other general testing measures. 
>>My advice to someone who is going to study here, first would be to make sure you are really interested in the topic which we're doing here. If you are not really interested it is going to be hard to obviously engage in the content. Also be prepared to work hard, so as I said before it is hard work but if you are prepared to put the hours in then hopefully you should get the results. 
>>Finally, make sure you really balance between the work which you are doing here and the social, it is really important to have that I believe and there is plenty of places round here to socialise and have fun. So you have got Cargo and The Deep End, which has just opened on campus and there is obviously cinemas and local eateries around and shopping centres, so there is plenty of places to relax as well. 
>>After I graduate, I hope to do a PhD here at Kent, I have currently actually applied for a PhD position with a supervisor here working on a topic called, Exercise Induced Pain, so I am hoping to go into that area in the future.