For Honours Molecular Biology & Genetics, it states that Completion of BIOLOGY 4C09 or 4F06 is required in Level IV. Students who do not obtain the minimum Cumulative Average as stated in the prerequisite, may request a requisite waiver from the Undergraduate Associate Chair. Students denied permission may not continue in the program and may apply to transfer to the Honours Biology program.

So basically, you can graduate with an Honours Biology degree, and still have coop experience? Because coop is available in level 3, and after that, you can still go into Honours Biology if you don't get into the thesis courses?

What if you have a change of heart and want to switch into Honours Biology in your 4th year, is it really that easy?

It's pretty easy to switch into honours biology because you have all the pre-reqs for it (for ex. in bio you only need the first orgo, whereas you would have done both orgos to continue in mol bio).

I'm guessing you'd have to switch out to honours bio after fourth year if you couldn't/didn't want to do a thesis, but you wouldn't be able to graduate with everyone because you would have done fourth year with a work term instead of school. Also the co-op program allows you to take only 4 courses instead of 5, and if you do that you'd missing more units. Here's the current schedule for mol bio co-op:

Summer after third year - 4XX3 + first work term
Fourth year term 1 - school
Fourth year term 2 - second work term or thesis*
Summer - thesis
Fifth year term 1 - third work term or thesis*
Fifth year term 2 - school + symposium
*You're supposed to latch one of the last two work terms to your summer thesis term so that you have a proper 8-month thesis.

Are you worried that you won't meet the criteria for a thesis, or do you not want to do one?

They've actually changed the mol bio sequence a bit so that your thesis isn't in the summer, haven't they?

At any rate, I know someone who did do that - after a little while doing thesis decided they didn't want to and switched to hons bio. You won't get a co-op degree though. Also, if you hate research so much that you won't do a thesis even if it means not being able to complete your degree, you should probably reconsider coop

I did this.

I don't know how much they've changed the co-op / thesis sequence, but in my case, my thesis and final work term were combined. I decided I didn't want to do research any more, so I finished the paid work term and opted out of the unpaid thesis work and moved into the Honours Biology program at that point. So yes, you can graduate with 3 paid co-op terms and no thesis.

Originally Posted by dhyong

I did this.

I don't know how much they've changed the co-op / thesis sequence, but in my case, my thesis and final work term were combined. I decided I didn't want to do research any more, so I finished the paid work term and opted out of the unpaid thesis work and moved into the Honours Biology program at that point. So yes, you can graduate with 3 paid co-op terms and no thesis.

The added benefit of doing co-op is that you can always opt out, whereas if you don't do it, you can't just sign up for it later on.

Originally Posted by starfish

They've actually changed the mol bio sequence a bit so that your thesis isn't in the summer, haven't they?

At any rate, I know someone who did do that - after a little while doing thesis decided they didn't want to and switched to hons bio. You won't get a co-op degree though. Also, if you hate research so much that you won't do a thesis even if it means not being able to complete your degree, you should probably reconsider coop

The previous years' sequence was different I think, the one I outlined is what they changed it to.

Another thing to mention is that mol bio theses are unpaid while apparently all the other co-op programs do a paid one. Holly mentioned to someone in my year mol bio co-op that they were working on getting us paid for our thesis too.

Originally Posted by rkb12

The previous years' sequence was different I think, the one I outlined is what they changed it to.

Another thing to mention is that mol bio theses are unpaid while apparently all the other co-op programs do a paid one. Holly mentioned to someone in my year mol bio co-op that they were working on getting us paid for our thesis too.

I did co-op in another science program and no, the thesis is not paid in any of them.
Third year is one term school, then one term co-op, then summer co-op, then fourth year is all classes (and thesis concurrently, like any other fourth-year), then the summer after fourth year and first term of fifth year are co-op, then the final term of fifth year is classes.
-->That is the sequence for all of the science co-op programs except for mol bio and biopharm. 16 months of paid work, and 8 months of thesis on top of that, which is unpaid.

The problem with mol bio was that the last work term was thesis, so you were actually getting paid to do half of the thesis, but at the same time you missed out on an actual "work" term because you had to spend it doing thesis. But again, that was the old sequence, I thought the purpose of them changing it was to fix that, but I guess not...I'm not really sure why they changed it, then.

Edit for clarity - the old mol bio sequence was: 3rd yr all classes, summer paid co-op, first term of fourth year was paid co-op, second term of fourth year was classes, summer after fourth year was a paid thesis, and the first term of fifth year was the second half of thesis (unpaid) plus one class.

They are not required to pay you for your thesis. If, however, your PI is nice, you can get paid.