Originally Posted by manap3000

really is that the issue here? the kids are in a way getting away with academic honesty and your concerned with the way the medium by which they're recieving the info, smh

Yeah, I guess my point didn't actually make it through my LL bashing. I was planning on adding something about how the issue wasn't that they had access to LL, and that the sharing of "study aids" was mainly because of the tight knit community. Its no different than when someone took pictures of the midterms with a cell phone for Bio 2A03 and distributed them last year, the technology wasn't the issue.

But once I get started on LL, I tend to get sidetracked. At least its (hopefully) disappearing over the next few years. I don't know if Health Sci and Nursing have the same policies for this one, but by September of next year we won't be using it.

Originally Posted by Marlowe

Yeah, I guess my point didn't actually make it through my LL bashing. I was planning on adding something about how the issue wasn't that they had access to LL, and that the sharing of "study aids" was mainly because of the tight knit community. Its no different than when someone took pictures of the midterms with a cell phone for Bio 2A03 and distributed them last year, the technology wasn't the issue.

But once I get started on LL, I tend to get sidetracked. At least its (hopefully) disappearing over the next few years. I don't know if Health Sci and Nursing have the same policies for this one, but by September of next year we won't be using it.

:O Nursing isn't going to be using LL anymore? First I've heard that.
Any idea why?

Well, they had planned to get rid of it completely when Elm was being implemented, but for obvious reasons that didn't end up happening. So when A2L was implemented, they took a conservative approach and moved about half the courses to it. A bit inconvenient to check two places, but safer if A2L had an ELM style lauch. Plus some of the features from A2L weren't implemented yet, and would have made PBL stuff a bit more difficult (the courses still on LearnLink are all PBL). Next year, once all of the A2L features are available, all the nursing courses will be on it.

LearnLink is absolutely ancient at this point, and while I'm sure it was groundbreaking 15 years ago, it really doesn't play nice with modern technology. I mean, you still need to download it to get full functionality! It's also visually unappealing, and full of glitches. The computers and software it was designed for just aren't in use any more, so a new system makes a lot of sense.

Originally Posted by Carefree

1. In my Medical Class in Toronto, we have about 20 Mac Health Sci Students, out of 224. The rest are mainly science students from other Universities.
2. The Health Science program, despite the concerns of spoon feeding/easy marks, is excellent preparation for medical school. The courses very relevant, especially health policy and anatomy and physiology, which you won't get much of in Life Sci.

I agree with Carefree. The program does prepare you with many disciplines in health sciences (epidemiology, biochemistry, cell biology, biostatistics, anatomy, etc.). For anatomy, unlike many undergraduate programs, you have access to cadavers - which is simply an awesome way to learn anatomy. If you would like, you can specialize in either biomedical sciences (mostly biochemistry) or global health (sort of soc sci route - you get to explore health care system in other nations and you travel to those regions as well). If you don't want any of that, it's fine - the program allows you to take a large number of electives. You can really do anything you want. The program really does prepare you well for really anything you want to do in life.
Also, rather than memorizing the crap out of textbooks, you get to learn about how to find resources, how to use & combine them and how to present them. From first year, we do what people start to do in senior years or grad school. I honestly feel these skills are far more important than knowing about some molecules or some evolution (no offense here) because you will forget about those molecules or evolutionary terms after exams while the aforementioned skills will be with you for a long long time, not to mention many graduate schools or professional schools require you to employ those skills. This, as a matter of fact, is the motto of the program. I personally realized that these skills were extremely beneficial to me when I started working on summer projects with a researcher. You will, for sure, learn these skills without being in BHSc at some point. However, I don't think any undergraduate programs let you explore around these things. It's not "soft" or anything. It simply is good for you.
Lastly, sure, health scis get "babied" in a sense that the office cares tremendously about them. Please don't let other people's negative sentiments affect you. This, in fact, is a very good thing. They are always willing to take your opinions in and make the program better. It will give you a sense of "ownership". I am not particularly a person with some kind of spirit in a program (I disliked my high school) but the program made me so

This is just my personal opinion/observation about the program after being in the program for a bit more than one year. I am posting this because there are just too many misconceptions and negative sentiments floating around. I wanted to share another side of the story. I'll let you decide