Hi everyone,

I am in the 3rd year of the Genetics program and considering taking 6 courses next semester instead of the usual 5. I know next year is going to be super busy because of my thesis/grad school applications, so I was wondering if doing more courses this year will help me out next year. But, I am also concerned that this may do more harm then good by essentially killing myself trying to keep my GPA

I don't know very much about some of these courses, and was wondering if anyone knows about the workload involved.


Bio 3I03 - Eukaryotic Genetics (3 hours/week)
Bio 3HH3 - Organization of the Cytoplasm (4 hours/week)
Bio 4P03 - Medical Microbiology (5 hours/week)
Bio 3V03 - Techniques in Molecular Genetics (7+ hours/week)
Anthrop 3R03 - Genetics and Modern Human Origins (3 hours/week)
Hth Sci 3U03 - Medical Genetics (3 hours/week)


Any help would be appreciated

-Lauren

EDIT: Also.. if anyone has textbooks for these classes they want to sell..

6 courses for the whole year?

Sorry, I meant semester !

My boyfriend took 3I, 3V and 3H last year (I think...the course names sound familiar)...and had a large and rather challenging workload with those three and his other two courses.

I'd nudge him to respond to you directly but he is on vacation until Jan 1st.

You will likely struggle to keep your GPA up, especially since you would have to add an extra three hours of lecture (not including studying, assignment-ing, labs and essay-ing) to your weekly schedule. If you do anything extra-curricular you will likely have to drop it just to complete all of the work you need to.

I would suggest taking a course or two in the summer rather than overloading. Especially if you just want to do electives: you can complete those online or through correspondance and they won't really conflict with full-time work.

Just a note about Hth Sci 3U03 - Medical Genetics: its prereq is Hth Sci 2K03, which is a health sci program-restricted course. So unless you are a health sci transfer and have that credit, I don't think you are allowed to take it.

Originally Posted by lorend

I would suggest taking a course or two in the summer rather than overloading. Especially if you just want to do electives: you can complete those online or through correspondance and they won't really conflict with full-time work.

Sorry to derail, but how does one go about doing online or correspondence courses?

Check what schools do online and/or correspondance.

Some I know of: Manitoba, Guelph, Laurentian. There are many more, but you'll have to search them up.

See what courses they offer. See if any of the courses you're interested in sound similar to a course offered at Mac.

Talk to the undegrad head of the department at Mac, and ask what the procedure is to take a Letter of Permission course.

Get permission.

Take course.

For example, I took an online Anthro through Laurentian last year. I had to get permission from the Anthro Head. I sent him the course description from the Laurentian course, and said I thought it was equivalent to X course at Mac. He and I had a meeting. He granted me permission. Then I contacted Laurentian on how to enroll as a letter of permission student. Took the course. Hated the prof. Got the over 60% needed to "pass". (LOP is graded on a pass/fail and don't affect your CA).