Hi,
I'm going into second year next year and am debating between going the Honours Chemistry or Honours Chemical Biology route. (I'm eligible for both) Could those of you who are in one of the two undergraduate program provide some advantages/disadvantages of your program, and also any advice if possible?

Thank you kindly!
Porsche

Thanks for asking I'm in the same spot. My biggest concern is that with Chemical Biology, you learn less Chemistry

I just finished my second year of chembio
In second year, we take a lot of courses with the biochem kids, but some of them are similar to required chem courses--phys chem, both orgos, analytical chem. We have a chembio inquiry course and lab course, and the chem people have their own lab and inquiry courses.

In third year, we take mostly chem courses--bio-organic chem, transition metals (which is a prereq for 4th year bio-inorganic chem), spectroscopy: structural elucidation, instrumental analysis, organic synthesis.

Chemical biology focuses on how small molecules affect biological systems--in essence, how to discover or design drugs. That's not the entire focus, but that is a big part of chembio (my favourite part!), and that's not really something you're going to get in pure chem. Pure chem also requires more physics/math.

Advantages of chembio:
-Access to tons of cool equipment, which is one of the reasons for the limited enrollment. The labs are too expensive to run if there's more than 30 people.
Tons of interaction with profs (in our lab course, there were 6 TAs and 2 profs for 25 students)
-Our lab course was really cool (extracting a small molecule from a plant of your choice, and testing to see if the molecule inhibits acetylcholinesterase and could therefore be used as an Alzheimer's drug, and synthesizing a library of compounds to screen against acetylcholinesterase, comparing the structures of the molecules to see which functional groups are important for activity)
-You get to know everyone in your program--they make sure you're all in the same lab section for all of your courses, to build a 'sense of community'
-New program/discipline that is pretty unique, which sets you apart from others when finding a job/applying to grad school
-Profs are constantly asking for feedback and trying to improve the program, and they really take our opinions seriously.
-I think the program has a good balance of chem, biochem and bio (although they are thinking of eliminating one of the biochem courses and one of the bio courses that we didn't really like/think were relevant)

Disadvantages of chembio:
-Intense workload first term...second term wasn't nearly as bad. A third of our program dropped out in first term. If you can stick it out though, second term is so much better!
-Lack of elective space, particularly in 2nd and 3rd year. In 4th year, there's lots of elective room
-It's a new program, so they're still trying to work out some of the kinks...but, it's getting better each year

Try looking at the required courses for both chembio and chem (as well as the chem specializations, if you're interested in any), and see which program has more courses that interest you--that's probably the program you should pick, so that you won't end up in a program that interests you in theory but has a ton of courses you don't like. Comparing courses also gives you an idea of how different/similar the two programs are. I don't know if we necessarily learn 'less' chemistry, but it's definitely different chemistry--more biological/application based, and less theoretical/math/physics/electron-based, if that makes sense.

If you have any questions about chembio, feel free to contact me

I recommend both. They're very good programs!

Hi, I had the same problem with deciding between the two and honours physics, so I literally camped the Chemistry department during the level 2 program fair. I've also talked to some people in both programs including my lab TA who was in honours chem and a girl in my physics class who needed the second physics by the end of second year (also in honours chem). And also various profs ha ha.

Anyways what I got so far is that Honours chem seems to have more labs (it's 8 hours every week). Plus they have their own lab course where your marks are solely based on your lab performance. In second year, Honours chem requires like 7 mandatory courses and 1 either linear algebra or a chem-math if you didn't take it. (I heard the chem-math was very easy). Also, you need to finish a second physics by end of second year. This means most people only have room for 1 elective.

Chem bio has some classes overlapping with biochem, so although you have your very small classes, you also have some moderate size ones. Whereas honours chem is like a highschool class right from the beginning.

I still can't decide, when the time comes I'll just flip a coin or something....

I agree that both of these programs are good so you wont go wrong with either. However speaking from the experience of several of my friends, get ready to work work work if you take chembio. People drop out of that program so quickly its not funny. In the school year that just finished I knew almost everyone in the chembio specialization, and more than 50% of this years class dropped out of chembio due to the workload. I am in no way discouraging you from taking this program, because there were several that survived the year. However you must know its a killer program, and Im guessing the work is worth it in the end.

In the school year that just finished I knew almost everyone in the chembio specialization, and more than 50% of this years class dropped out of chembio due to the workload.

It does have a very intense workload, but we definitely didn't lose 50% of the program. We started with 33, and ended term 2 with 24. Some of the people dropped out because of the workload, and others dropped out because they didn't like the program--some people thought that there was too much bio, and switched into chem, someone switched into nursing, someone switched into physiology...not necessarily because of the workload, but because they were more interested in other areas. It's pretty easy to switch from chembio into anything else, but it's much harder to switch from something else into chembio--you'd probably only be able to switch in from biochem or chem.

In terms of lab hours per week, we have one 3hr lab every week and one 3hr lab every other week in first term, and second term is one 4hr lab every week and one 3hr lab every other week--so yeah, it sounds like a bit less lab work than chem. Our lab course mark is based on lab performance, prelab questions/post-lab results/analysis, and two lab reports. The first lab report talks about the first three labs, and the final report talks about the last 4 labs (many of the labs take more than one week to complete). The labs are integrated with each other--the first three labs are mostly learning basic extraction/purification principles (salting out, centrifugation, column chromatography, gel electrophoresis) and the last 4 labs are extracting a natural product from a plant, purifying and characterizing it, synthesizing a chalcone (as a class you make a library of them), characterizing it, determining the activity of acetylcholinesterase and then screening your natural product and chalcone to see if they inhibit. I have no idea what the chem people do in their lab course, but I think that one is all year? I could be wrong, though. Ours is only 2nd term.

In second year chembio, you only get one elective, and if you haven't taken physics 1B03, you have to take that course as your 'elective'. A lot of people took genetics (which we are supposed to take in third year) as their elective.

Originally Posted by macsci

I recommend both. They're very good programs!

. . . How exactly am I supposed to do both majors?. . .

Originally Posted by Fish

. . . How exactly am I supposed to do both majors?. . .

I didn't mean do both majors. I meant either one is good. In terms of science majors, both are very good at mac.

whats the differece between the two?

whats the difference between Biochem and chemical biology

Originally Posted by cjdzl

whats the difference between Biochem and chemical biology

This question has plagued me for weeks now :S

Biochem is closer to Chem while ChemBio is closer to Bio...

So, crudely (someone might have an explanation that DOESN'T involve an enzyme..)
Chemistry->ChemBio->BioChem->Bio

Originally Posted by britb

Biochem is closer to Chem while ChemBio is closer to Bio...

So, crudely (someone might have an explanation that DOESN'T involve an enzyme..)
Chemistry->BioChem->ChemBio->Bio

You got it the other way around, chembio is MORE chem than biochem. For one thing, chembio belongs in the chemistry department, and if you actually looked at the courses, you can tell there's more chemistry involved than biochem.

My mistake! I'll edit that.