Originally Posted by Unregistered

My biggest problem with going into Health Sciences is that all of the group work and group interaction will be difficult, and since it's a competitive program, I'm afraid that people won't be nice (grew up being bullied, so it's kind of a fear and I've heard that health science students can be arrogant at times [not sure if this is true or not and I don't want to offend anyone so I'm just going to put a disclaimer that this is NOT what I think, it's just what I've heard]).

I totally understand what you mean, and I had the exact same fear (I was bullied pretty badly too). The awesome part of health sci, though, is that we're not competitive with each other - we're competitive with outsiders . In what we often refer to as the 'health sci community', we help each other out all the time, and because it's a small program, you eventually get to know just about everyone in your year (I'd say I know at least 1/2 of the people here, and that's in less than three months). We definitely aren't arrogant, or at least everyone I know isn't - after all, arrogance often shines through on the supp app, and I imagine that's a big red flag for supp app markers.

Group work in high school is not group work, it's something else entirely. In high school, you work really hard on a group project, everyone else slacks off, and it ends up being your work with your group members' names on it. In the program, it's very different - everyone pulls their own weight and works effectively with each other. For example, I work in a group of six to write essays for our psychobiology course (i.e. behavioural neuroscience), and I normally hate writing things with other people. But I feel like I'm really getting to know my group members, we work really effectively together, and it's generally just a totally different experience. I'll stop rambling now, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't not come to health sci because you fear high-school-like group work .

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I also want to take a lot of knowledge based courses since I love learning too, so I'm not sure how "free", so to speak, Health sciences is with electives in comparison to life sciences.

In first year, you take a course called Cellular and Molecular Biology (HTH SCI 1I06), which is very knowledge-based, but the tests are instead called RAPSEs and TRIPSEs (types of Problem-Solving Exercises) and test you on your ability to apply your knowledge to novel scientific situations (in the form of a graph, a table, a clinical case, a public health scenario, whatever).

With that being said, you have lots of room for electives. I'm taking microeconomics as an elective, and also Current Topics in Biomedical Science. I know people who have taken English, anthropology, history, physics, etc. - you'll have lots of room to do other things if you want to, and your elective spaces actually increase as you proceed through the program (by fourth year, you get 18 units of electives, i.e. 60% of your course load).

Originally Posted by Unregistered

the idea of inquiry kind of freaks me out because it can be about absolutely anything. It's cool but at the same time freaky - does anybody have any reviews on Inquiry?

There aren't any reviews of Inquiry on Macinsiders, and for a very good reason - it's different for everyone! Inquiry is whatever you want it to be. My facilitator, Del, started the course off by asking us what we wanted to do. There's no structure, you make your own structure. For my slot, we have discussions about big issues in healthcare, but I have a friend who's in another session that is focussing on collaborative art and art history. You all discuss what you want to do, and when you come to a consensus, you do it - so it's what you like, not what some administrator says you should know.

If you ask any health sci of any year what Inquiry is, the invariable response will be a "I don't know", because even after you do inquiry, you don't really know what it is. It's what you want it to be. Definitely don't fear it - I feared it, and now it's turned out to be one of my most favourite courses!

Originally Posted by starfish

I'm not implying that it's because health sci is easier, which I think is why you're getting defensive. Staying outside of that debate altogether, I believe that a contributing factor to health scis doing well is that they're selected based on students that are a good fit to the program. If you take a student in any program and have them take courses suited to their learning style, of course they're going to get higher grades than if they were in courses that don't. At the same time, a student in health sci who doesn't get the learning style, then they'll do poorly.

My apologies if I seemed defensive, and that is what I thought - sorry for misunderstanding what you meant. I definitely agree with you, the averages are higher, but that's because we screen for people who are best suited to the program.

Originally Posted by Silver

1) i doubt it prepares you for med school. health sci is pretty laid back, especially in 3rd and 4th year where its just electives. i doubt that kind of workload would prepare you for what you will face in med school.

2) i doubt you know what you like about uni courses yet. you dont know how those courses are structured and you havent even looked into /science/bio courses yet which actually have labs and actual science stuff. lots of health sci courses can be taken as electives by non health scis anyways. if youre looking for a gpa boost, my friends always recommend the health sci courses.

Originally Posted by Silver

1) i doubt it prepares you for med school. health sci is pretty laid back, especially in 3rd and 4th year where its just electives. i doubt that kind of workload would prepare you for what you will face in med school.

Au contraire! I'm lucky to get 6 hours of sleep; I have group meetings almost every day until late at night. And for electives in third and fourth year, those end up getting filled with a thesis project, where you work overtime all the time in a research lab and come up with a novel discovery. Health sci definitely prepares you for med school - that's why over 50% of the graduating class every year goes to med school, and the others go to law school or doctoral studies.

Originally Posted by swarly

I applied to health sci after high school but got rejected and went into life sci. Honestly, I loved life sci. It's a general science course that covers your general sciences and there are a lot of opportunities to specialize in upper years. So if you don't get into health sci, don't worry, life sci is great. That being said, I did apply for a transfer after my first year and got in . The supplementary application is the same that the high school students write, and other than that, you need a 10.0 GPA on a 12.0 scale.

This is very, very true, and I wasn't aware of that requirement... that's actually pretty reasonable, a 10.0 GPA. I agree, definitely don't worry if you don't get into health sci, you'll do fine in life sci too

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Really? I didn't know that! How many transfer applications does he get per year?

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This is so, so true, and I can't emphasize that enough. Be yourself, and try to portray yourself as a real person, not a car that you're trying to sell .

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Yep, this is very true. According to Del, the program dean, health sci averages are usually A-, occasionally A.

I seriously can't believe I just wrote that much... but on the off chance I missed something, feel free to PM me.

Just realized that I missed a whole page of posts..... sorry if I missed anything important :(.

No chance for health sci, it is the truth.

Au contraire! I'm lucky to get 6 hours of sleep; I have group meetings almost every day until late at night. And for electives in third and fourth year, those end up getting filled with a thesis project, where you work overtime all the time in a research lab and come up with a novel discovery. Health sci definitely prepares you for med school - that's why over 50% of the graduating class every year goes to med school, and the others go to law school or doctoral studies.

if you're only getting less than 6 hours of sleep, youre doing first year wrong. thats just bad time management on your part. and you guys do a thesis in 3rd and 4th year? you get 36-39 units of electives throughout those years. i seriously doubt its all a thesis project. also, getting into med school and being prepared for med school are different things. you're saying just because a certain amount of people get into med school from your program, theyre prepared. no, it doesnt work like that.

Originally Posted by Silver

1) i doubt it prepares you for med school. health sci is pretty laid back, especially in 3rd and 4th year where its just electives. i doubt that kind of workload would prepare you for what you will face in med school.

Just wondering, what makes you say having more electives mean less work? Freedom, certainly, but wouldn't you agree that workload is determined by the courses you take, not how many are mandatory.

Originally Posted by Silver

2) i doubt you know what you like about uni courses yet. you dont know how those courses are structured and you havent even looked into /science/bio courses yet which actually have labs and actual science stuff. lots of health sci courses can be taken as electives by non health scis anyways. if youre looking for a gpa boost, my friends always recommend the health sci courses.

I wouldn't generalize science as being associated with labs. Application of a principle in a lab doesn't make it more 'science-y'.

In fact, I would argue that being able to read from a lab manual and produce the same compound as 20 other students doesn't show any scientific thinking at all. It's the analysis of past work and the development of new hypotheses that drives science forward.

Originally Posted by ngarber

I totally understand what you mean, and I had the exact same fear (I was bullied pretty badly too). The awesome part of health sci, though, is that we're not competitive with each other - we're competitive with outsiders . In what we often refer to as the 'health sci community', we help each other out all the time, and because it's a small program, you eventually get to know just about everyone in your year (I'd say I know at least 1/2 of the people here, and that's in less than three months). We definitely aren't arrogant, or at least everyone I know isn't - after all, arrogance often shines through on the supp app, and I imagine that's a big red flag for supp app markers.

Group work in high school is not group work, it's something else entirely. In high school, you work really hard on a group project, everyone else slacks off, and it ends up being your work with your group members' names on it. In the program, it's very different - everyone pulls their own weight and works effectively with each other. For example, I work in a group of six to write essays for our psychobiology course (i.e. behavioural neuroscience), and I normally hate writing things with other people. But I feel like I'm really getting to know my group members, we work really effectively together, and it's generally just a totally different experience. I'll stop rambling now, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't not come to health sci because you fear high-school-like group work .



In first year, you take a course called Cellular and Molecular Biology (HTH SCI 1I06), which is very knowledge-based, but the tests are instead called RAPSEs and TRIPSEs (types of Problem-Solving Exercises) and test you on your ability to apply your knowledge to novel scientific situations (in the form of a graph, a table, a clinical case, a public health scenario, whatever).

With that being said, you have lots of room for electives. I'm taking microeconomics as an elective, and also Current Topics in Biomedical Science. I know people who have taken English, anthropology, history, physics, etc. - you'll have lots of room to do other things if you want to, and your elective spaces actually increase as you proceed through the program (by fourth year, you get 18 units of electives, i.e. 60% of your course load).



There aren't any reviews of Inquiry on Macinsiders, and for a very good reason - it's different for everyone! Inquiry is whatever you want it to be. My facilitator, Del, started the course off by asking us what we wanted to do. There's no structure, you make your own structure. For my slot, we have discussions about big issues in healthcare, but I have a friend who's in another session that is focussing on collaborative art and art history. You all discuss what you want to do, and when you come to a consensus, you do it - so it's what you like, not what some administrator says you should know.

If you ask any health sci of any year what Inquiry is, the invariable response will be a "I don't know", because even after you do inquiry, you don't really know what it is. It's what you want it to be. Definitely don't fear it - I feared it, and now it's turned out to be one of my most favourite courses!



My apologies if I seemed defensive, and that is what I thought - sorry for misunderstanding what you meant. I definitely agree with you, the averages are higher, but that's because we screen for people who are best suited to the program.





Au contraire! I'm lucky to get 6 hours of sleep; I have group meetings almost every day until late at night. And for electives in third and fourth year, those end up getting filled with a thesis project, where you work overtime all the time in a research lab and come up with a novel discovery. Health sci definitely prepares you for med school - that's why over 50% of the graduating class every year goes to med school, and the others go to law school or doctoral studies.



This is very, very true, and I wasn't aware of that requirement... that's actually pretty reasonable, a 10.0 GPA. I agree, definitely don't worry if you don't get into health sci, you'll do fine in life sci too



Really? I didn't know that! How many transfer applications does he get per year?



This is so, so true, and I can't emphasize that enough. Be yourself, and try to portray yourself as a real person, not a car that you're trying to sell .



Yep, this is very true. According to Del, the program dean, health sci averages are usually A-, occasionally A.

I seriously can't believe I just wrote that much... but on the off chance I missed something, feel free to PM me.

OP Here! Thanks for taking the time to respond to all of my questions, and a few peoples posts I really appreciate it. I'm definitely hoping towards Health Sciences, but putting in 2 other applications to McMaster - Life Sciences and Earth Sciences (just in case for some reason I don't get into Life Sci). I finished 2 out of the three supplementary questions, and I'm almost done my third so I'm really confident right now that it's a good application (if not great).

I'd also like to add that fourth years do read the supplementary applications; my boyfriends friend was reading through them last year and marking them. So, I know for a fact at least a few students go through them (maybe it's class specific? or major specific? who knows) but I do know that students have the opportunity to read through them and provide feedback on the applications.

But yeah everyones information has been really helpful and I'm thankful for all of the great responses! Good luck on your final exams/papers/presentations!

Originally Posted by RememberTwce

I wouldn't generalize science as being associated with labs. Application of a principle in a lab doesn't make it more 'science-y'.

In fact, I would argue that being able to read from a lab manual and produce the same compound as 20 other students doesn't show any scientific thinking at all. It's the analysis of past work and the development of new hypotheses that drives science forward.

Lab work is at the heart of science.

And based on your second comment, I'm going to assume you have only ever taken intro-level science courses where the labs are based on exposing you to techniques, not really actual "research". Upper-level science courses with labs tend to have vague procedures and everybody is making different compounds, doing a different procedure, and troubleshooting as they go because (in some cases) these compounds have never been made before. There are other examples too other than just making compounds, but there's no need to get into all of it. There are also probably exceptions (not every upper year science course will be like this, as there is still the need to expose students to different techniques), but in my experience the vast majority of them are.

Labs are useless. You're never going to have a realistic view of science unless you do am MSc or PhD, and even then you are being hand held.

Plus, knowledge of lab procedures is useless in medicine.

Use UG to have fun, get good marks and to learn stuff you're interested in.

Originally Posted by Fight0

Labs are useless. You're never going to have a realistic view of science unless you do am MSc or PhD, and even then you are being hand held.

Plus, knowledge of lab procedures is useless in medicine.

Use UG to have fun, get good marks and to learn stuff you're interested in.

OP again - yeah, I mean my main goal for undergrad is to expose myself to all of the topics I'm interested in (as previously mentioned) plus take a fourth year thesis course in the summer of my final year. I feel like if I did go into medical school (if I'm lucky) then I would be exposed to more physiology and anatomy - so why waste my undergrad studying something I'm going to be studying for an additional 4 years? Yeah, it'd make it easier, but I'd rather gain a wider variety of knowledge in my undergrad than to repeat the same four years after my initial four years of post secondary education.

Then I get a bit of everything, I'm more well-rounded and I'm not burnt out.

Originally Posted by starfish

Lab work is at the heart of science.

I personally don't agree with this, but you may have more experience with lab work and possess a different perspective.

Originally Posted by starfish

And based on your second comment, I'm going to assume you have only ever taken intro-level science courses where the labs are based on exposing you to techniques, not really actual "research". Upper-level science courses with labs tend to have vague procedures and everybody is making different compounds, doing a different procedure, and troubleshooting as they go because (in some cases) these compounds have never been made before. There are other examples too other than just making compounds, but there's no need to get into all of it. There are also probably exceptions (not every upper year science course will be like this, as there is still the need to expose students to different techniques), but in my experience the vast majority of them are.

My post was based on the other poster's view that courses with "labs and actual science stuff" are somehow more representative of science.

While I don't have a great deal of lab experience, I do have friends in more lab-intensive programs and I know how different labs can be in upper years. However, my point was made to address how useless labs CAN be.

To provide an example, one of the more interesting courses I'm taking at the moment is Immunology. We don't have any labs, but the information relayed to us, and the research (into current advances, etc.) we do independently to enhance our understanding has given me a pretty good grasp of the material. If the lack of labs makes this course less 'science-y', then I certainly don't see it. I suppose this was the point I was trying to make.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

OP again - yeah, I mean my main goal for undergrad is to expose myself to all of the topics I'm interested in (as previously mentioned) plus take a fourth year thesis course in the summer of my final year. I feel like if I did go into medical school (if I'm lucky) then I would be exposed to more physiology and anatomy - so why waste my undergrad studying something I'm going to be studying for an additional 4 years? Yeah, it'd make it easier, but I'd rather gain a wider variety of knowledge in my undergrad than to repeat the same four years after my initial four years of post secondary education.

Then I get a bit of everything, I'm more well-rounded and I'm not burnt out.

If you've had no exposure to it thus far, what makes you think you would want to continue to do it in medical school (if/when you get in)?

This should be a consideration, since you really have very little to provide a convincing argument for why you want to go to medical school at this point in your life.

Originally Posted by RememberTwce

If you've had no exposure to it thus far, what makes you think you would want to continue to do it in medical school (if/when you get in)?

This should be a consideration, since you really have very little to provide a convincing argument for why you want to go to medical school at this point in your life.

I have taken two courses where I've studied anatomy (dance, and exercise science). A lot of physiology has also been incorporated into my biology courses.
I like the idea of medicine, because I want to help children but I also want to do immunology (something I've had HUGE exposure to, through my boyfriend/personal projects I've conducted/papers and articles I've read/many guest lectures I've attended); Paediatric immunology is my end goal. Or cardiology because it's something that interests me as well. Both of these subjects is something you need an MD in (since I want to actually be a 'doctor' for these fields, not strictly a researcher).

I haven't really argued as to why I want to go into medical school, I've just pointed out that it's something I wish to pursue.

Just wondering, what makes you say having more electives mean less work? Freedom, certainly, but wouldn't you agree that workload is determined by the courses you take, not how many are mandatory.

it is determined by the courses you take, but most people are gonna look for easy courses as their electives, especially those aiming for med school.

My post was based on the other poster's view that courses with "labs and actual science stuff" are somehow more representative of science.

they are especially compared to what health scis learn.

While I don't have a great deal of lab experience, I do have friends in more lab-intensive programs and I know how different labs can be in upper years. However, my point was made to address how useless labs CAN be.

sure some labs can be useless but youre still learning lots of methods that will benefit you as a scientist and researcher, if that is something someone plans on doing. even if not, it doesnt hurt to understand.