Hey I was wondering how hands on the kinesiology courses are first year compared to other schools. Do you do a lot of labs and hands on work or is it more lecture based first year? How do you think the program compares to that of Waterloo?

Hey there,

Don't know much about waterloo.

Their approach seems very structured, while Mac's seems to allow more room for specialization and taking the electives you want.

First note about Mac: We do very little Musculoskeletal Anatomy first year as we have a whole course second year dedicated to just that. Our two first year Anatomy and Physiology courses cover all systems and embryology, although the lions share of the focus is on the nervous, cardiovascular and respiratory systems. These courses have labs every other week and they can be pretty hands on although not overly so. (Most interactive was dissection and examination of a pig mediastinum). I found when looking at Kinesiology programs they seemed to pump up their Anatomy Lab experiences. However, I honestly don't think you can reasonably offer much more than Mac does for undergraduate Anatomy labs.

Research Methods and Data Analysis also has labs, although they are not labs in the sense you are probably thinking of them. Basically, you practice designing research studies/ analyzing them. I have posted a detailed review of this course under course reviews, so I won't go into too much detail and will let you check it out.

Motor Control and Learning, (called Psychomotor Behavior previously) was very hands on. Lots of interactive class demonstrations and participation, and we had 4 optional labs, that counted for bonus marks if completed. These labs examined certain motor learning laws and principles.

Physical Activity Epidemiology was the definition of a lecture based course.

Nutrition was ballin'. Phillips is THE man. Very useful, applied knowledge, but still provided background knowledge. Assignments were eye opening.

Then you have 4 electives. You need Math 1LS3 or 1A03 (Calculus for the Life Sciences or Calculus for the Sciences) by the end of your second year. It is strongly recommended to take Physics 1L03 (Physics for the life sciences) before second year Biomechanics.

I don't know much about second year but at Mac you'd be taking:

Biomechanics I (has lab)
Growth and Development
Health Psychology
Musculoskeletal Anatomy (entire course is hybrid lecture-labs)
Neuromuscular Exercise Physiology (has a lab)
Cardiorespiratory and Metabolic Exercise Physiology (has a lab)
and 4 electives.

Before I leave you with that I just want to make a note about why Mac Kin is such a great program academically: Research. The whole program is focused on producing future scientists. You may not realize this, but developing research skills is important for just about every health profession+ going into graduate school. Right from the beginning, we start learning about study designs, how to analyze data, how to evaluate what a study is telling us, elegant study designs that solved big questions in the fields we're studying, and what sort of research is going on right now in those fields. I am so impressed that our profs have made sure to bring in grad students to give guest lectures about their research, it has really enriched our experience.

Anyways that's my spiel. Hope it helps.

This is slightly off-topic, but I took Kin 2C03/2CC3 (Neuromuscular and Cardio/Metabol exercise physiology) and I found that those labs were not very "hands-on". They were only about 1 hr-1.5 hrs and scheduled unevenly throughout the term in order to coincide with the relevant lectures. They usually consisted of one to two students performing the required activity (which was typically a commonly used and/or well-known protocol used by other kinesiologists), and the class observing and recording data. There were simple, very short lab reports to be written up after lab, and handed in by the next lab.

Though not everyone gets to try the activity (hence why I said it wasn't that hands-on), it's still interesting to watch people to do it and you can still learn about the equipment/protocol. You could also volunteer to be the one to do it if you wanted to get real "hands-on" experience.

how did you like the courses other than the labs (kin 2c03 and 2cc3)? I heard they were fairly easy and interesting. I couldn't find any reviews on these two. thanks!

Originally Posted by kirbyking

how did you like the courses other than the labs (kin 2c03 and 2cc3)? I heard they were fairly easy and interesting. I couldn't find any reviews on these two. thanks!

Yeah I would agree that they were "fairly easy and interesting". I liked the material in 2CC3 (cardioresp/metab) better than 2C03, although I found that both of them were reasonably easy to understand and get a "big picture" idea of. I took 2CC3 with Dr. Gibala and 2C03 with Dr. Hicks, and found that both were pretty good at explaining things and both really put in an effort to help students. Both courses also used courseware, which was basically just the print version of powerpoint lectures. One of these days I might write a review, but for now that's a very brief lowdown . Feel free to ask/PM me any specific questions you might have about the courses.