Hi,
I'm a level 3 student in the faculty of science. For my program, I am required to take a course - but I am not interested in taking it - besides it is very difficult, from what I have heard from the upper years, and may dampen my grades - which are of utmost important for professional school (Didn't do too well first year, still recovering). The thing is that this course does NOT serve as a pre-req for any upper year courses. What will happen if I don't complete this course? Will I not get a degree? Can I just drop to a general science degree instead?
I have tried reasoning with the dept head to "opt out of the course", and this has been an unfruitful endeavor. I have heard of a bachelor of health science students opt out of some required courses, and still was able to obtain their degree. Does anybody have any experience or insight about what to do?
Thanks,
Jordan

In general, if a course is required for your degree it means you can't get the degree without taking the course (or an equivalent course). But you definitely have the option of switching into a stream that doesn't require that course, and getting your degree in that. Talk to your academic advisor, they're the one who can best tell you about your options.

Yeah, you can't just decide you don't want to take a required course. Like, I'd LOVE to just not take chem 3AA3 since I'm terrible at analytical chemistry (thus it will bring my mark down), and it's not a prereq to anything else, but it's part of the program and I won't fulfill my degree requirements without it--it's assumed that anyone who graduates from chemical biology will have a certain level of competence in analytical chemistry. The required courses maintain the integrity of the program.

I don't think you can actually get a degree in just 'science'. Based on the course calendar, they don't offer it. You can get a 3-year BSc in life sci, physical sci, enviro sci or math/stats. The 4-year honours programs are offered through the departments listed here: http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /CALEN...nt/pg1466.html and they're all more specific than the 3-year programs.

You should definitely talk to an academic advisor, but the way I see it, you have three options:

1. Suck it up and take the course--it might not be as bad as you think.
2. See if it's offered online (such as through Athabasca). This way you can take the course in the summer and devote all of your time to it and hopefully do better. You also have more than 4 months to complete it. The mark you get WILL count on professional school applications, although it won't affect your McMaster CA.
3. If you don't require an undergraduate degree to get into the professional school you're looking at (for example, you only need 2 years of undergrad to get into pharmacy), and you plan to apply to professional school before finishing your degree, you can pretty much take whatever courses you want--so, you can officially stay in Life Sci, and just not fulfill that requirement...it won't matter since you're not intending to graduate anyways. If you don't get into the professional school you want by the time you're going into your final year, then you can just take the course so that you can graduate.

Why would you give up your specialization because you don't want to take one required course?

That sounds crazy.

Originally Posted by macsci

Why would you give up your specialization because you don't want to take one required course?

That sounds crazy.

A.) Doesn't serve as pre-reqs for upper years
B.) Hard
C.) Rather have an extra elective

I personally think that you shouldn't let one course deter you from your goals. One bad mark doesn't mean your mark will suffer that bad. On top of that, you haven't even taken the course yet. You could still pull off a 10.

I have 2 courses that look like they don't belong among my other courses, but that's only 2 out of 20. My GPA is still higher than the average they accepted last year for optometry.

My point is that life isn't a stroll in the park and that you should meet your obstacles head on in order to attain your goals.

Originally Posted by jhan523

I personally think that you shouldn't let one course deter you from your goals. One bad mark doesn't mean your mark will suffer that bad. On top of that, you haven't even taken the course yet. You could still pull off a 10.

I have 2 courses that look like they don't belong among my other courses, but that's only 2 out of 20. My GPA is still higher than the average they accepted last year for optometry.

My point is that life isn't a stroll in the park and that you should meet your obstacles head on in order to attain your goals.

I understand the NEED TO FILL PRE-REQS, which serve for the foundation of knowledge for upper year courses, yet this is not one of those instances. Such examples are Organic Chemistry.

But why not take the path of least resistance, if we ultimately get to the same goal its easier to do so, and we are all products of that - which is why most of us pick easy courses for electives. Why should I take a course that I am NOT interested in, I'm less inclined to do well than another course which I am actually interested in taking. Why should I put so much effort into a pre-req which, at the end of the school term, serves no other purpose but to fill the requirements in the "course calendar" which is put together by the heads of my department, who have arbitrarily decided what is best for the program. We should have choice to choose what we want and do not learn, we should have flexibility - but to a certain extent. We need to question what we actually need to learn sometimes. Now I'm not saying that we should choose all the courses pertaining to our field ourselves, of course not, but this is one of these instances of exception. If it was an important course, it would serve as a pre-requisite for higher level courses, yet it doesn't.

Lets say you need to take a third year organic chemistry for your program. Now it doesn't serve as a pre-req knowledge to any upper year courses (although it might help - but that's besides the point I'm trying to make). Unless your actually interested in Chemistry, why would you put yourself through a difficult time? Would you not contest such, or would you rather dutifully accept what other deem "important" for you to learn?

Btw this is a 2nd year course that I have to take during 3rd year.

Originally Posted by jordan19

I understand the NEED TO FILL PRE-REQS, which serve for the foundation of knowledge for upper year courses, yet this is not one of those instances. Such examples are Organic Chemistry.

But why not take the path of least resistance, if we ultimately get to the same goal its easier to do so, and we are all products of that - which is why most of us pick easy courses for electives. Why should I take a course that I am NOT interested in, I'm less inclined to do well than another course which I am actually interested in taking. Why should I put so much effort into a pre-req which, at the end of the school term, serves no other purpose but to fill the requirements in the "course calendar" which is put together by the heads of my department, who have arbitrarily decided what is best for the program. We should have choice to choose what we want and do not learn, we should have flexibility - but to a certain extent. We need to question what we actually need to learn sometimes. Now I'm not saying that we should choose all the courses pertaining to our field ourselves, of course not, but this is one of these instances of exception. If it was an important course, it would serve as a pre-requisite for higher level courses, yet it doesn't.

Lets say you need to take a third year organic chemistry for your program. Now it doesn't serve as a pre-req knowledge to any upper year courses (although it might help - but that's besides the point I'm trying to make). Unless your actually interested in Chemistry, why would you put yourself through a difficult time? Would you not contest such, or would you rather dutifully accept what other deem "important" for you to learn?

Fair enough.

If you are applying to graduate/professional school, the program you are currently in serves as a back-up in case you do not get in. It should be something you enjoy to do. If you still enjoy doing more general learning then that's fine too. I don't know what you like and do not like so I cannot comment on that.

But if you do like your specialization then 1 course shouldn't prevent you from continuing in it. That's why I'm still in Genetics. I've encountered a handful of courses that do not interest me due to their very general nature and off-topic (I don't like learning about plants), yet I continue to stay in the program because I really like the subject and look forward to learning more specialized material.

Originally Posted by jordan19

Btw this is a 2nd year course that I have to take during 3rd year.

That shouldn't be a factor though. I'll be taking 2nd year courses in 3rd year as well. The level of courses are there to indicate the level of knowledge required for the course and not necessarily what year you should be taking it in.

For example: Stats 2B03 is a Level 2 course, but McMaster open all the seats to 3rd years because they are required/recommended to take it before pursuing their thesis. Only a handful of second years actually get into the course.

Originally Posted by jhan523

Fair enough.

If you are applying to graduate/professional school, the program you are currently in serves as a back-up in case you do not get in. It should be something you enjoy to do. If you still enjoy doing more general learning then that's fine too. I don't know what you like and do not like so I cannot comment on that.

But if you do like your specialization then 1 course shouldn't prevent you from continuing in it. That's why I'm still in Genetics. I've encountered a handful of courses that do not interest me due to their very general nature and off-topic (I don't like learning about plants), yet I continue to stay in the program because I really like the subject and look forward to learning more specialized material.

I chose my program because I am truly interested in it. But seeing how broad the field is, there are some aspects that I do not enjoy as well, and are not interested in. We should pick and choose which aspects of a program we like, and not be subjected to learn things that we don't want to. Students, to a large degree have freedom to pick and choose what they want to learn in their particular field... but as I said there are still some requisites, which are deemed to be necessary. You mentioned that you had to take a course on plants (or watever) but in general, if you weren't interested in that topic, and if it didn't serve to be a cornerstone for higher learning, then what is the ultimate point? Our education largely needs to be tailored to what is truly required to understand what we plan on studying, and most importantly must represent what we are interested in.

Originally Posted by jhan523

That shouldn't be a factor though. I'll be taking 2nd year courses in 3rd year as well. The level of courses are there to indicate the level of knowledge required for the course and not necessarily what year you should be taking it in.

For example: Stats 2B03 is a Level 2 course, but McMaster open all the seats to 3rd years because they are required/recommended to take it before pursuing their thesis. Only a handful of second years actually get into the course.

I believe this sort of has a basis in what I am trying to say. Most if not all programs based higher level courses on previous knowledge taught in other courses. I could have said I don't want to take, for example some "level 4 course", because it doesn't serve as a pre-req to anything else. My argument would be equally valid; however, the point I am trying to make would be severely weakened. Of course a higher level course doesn't serve as a pre-req to any other courses, it's already at the top! There is a difference then, because second year courses (compared to upper level courses) are less likely to really envelope what we are trying to get out of our degree, and the knowledge and understanding we ascertain from such courses do not truly contribute to the true scope of each degree.

Originally Posted by jordan19

I chose my program because I am truly interested in it. But seeing how broad the field is, there are some aspects that I do not enjoy as well, and are not interested in. We should pick and choose which aspects of a program we like, and not be subjected to learn things that we don't want to. Students, to a large degree have freedom to pick and choose what they want to learn in their particular field... but as I said there are still some requisites, which are deemed to be necessary. You mentioned that you had to take a course on plants (or watever) but in general, if you weren't interested in that topic, and if it didn't serve to be a cornerstone for higher learning, then what is the ultimate point? Our education largely needs to be tailored to what is truly required to understand what we plan on studying, and most importantly must represent what we are interested in.



I believe this sort of has a basis in what I am trying to say. Most if not all programs based higher level courses on previous knowledge taught in other courses. I could have said I don't want to take, for example some "level 4 course", because it doesn't serve as a pre-req to anything else. My argument would be equally valid; however, the point I am trying to make would be severely weakened. Of course a higher level course doesn't serve as a pre-req to any other courses, it's already at the top! There is a difference then, because second year courses (compared to upper level courses) are less likely to really envelope what we are trying to get out of our degree, and the knowledge and understanding we ascertain from such courses do not truly contribute to the true scope of each degree.

You are one of the few students who know exactly what they want to do. The majority of university students only have a vague idea of what they want to pursue. That's the reason why first and second year are so general. It's to give students knowledge in a wide variety of material in order for them to make their choices. A lot of second year courses overlap between programs which allows for an easy transfer from one program to the other when they figure out what they like most.

Plant Biology has served me no purpose in my education. I had to take it in order to graduate from my program and I'm not going to let 1 course prevent me from accomplishing my goal.

I don't know what I can say to you. University is the way it is because the students have no idea what they want to learn. If the majority of students knew what they wanted to do coming into university, I think it would be a lot different than how it is now. Not everything goes my way in life and I know that. I just deal with how life and I don't let it interfere with my goals.

Originally Posted by jordan19

Why should I put so much effort into a pre-req which, at the end of the school term, serves no other purpose but to fill the requirements in the "course calendar" which is put together by the heads of my department, who have arbitrarily decided what is best for the program.

The courses for specializations and degrees in sciences and engineering (which is what I'm most familiar with) are just chosen by some random process and cobbled together. There are well established academic committees which spend hours and months and years debating what is and isn't required for an academic program. You can probably rest assured that choice to include the course you'd rather not take was not arbitrary, but rather had a clear rationale and was debated on by professors in your department who are experts in the field. I sat one of of these committees for 4 years as an undergrad (in engineering) and waded into many of these debates, they're not pretty and they're certainly not a place for arbitrary decisions.

As an example, during one particularly fun series of 5 4 hour meetings, our committee was tasked with vetting a new biomedical engineering specialization. Probably 6 hours of this 20 hours of meetings was spent debating the merits of required a general statistics course (2nd year stats) for the degree. On one side there were those trying to minimize the requirements for the degree to get more electives, on the other side were professors who were absolutely adamant that the university could not graduate engineers who did not have a full grasp of basic statistics. Those professors felt these students wouldn't be fully capable of being informed citizens without understanding the issues of polling, sampling, populations outside of their engineering context. In the end, 2nd year stats ended up as part of the program (it was already required for all other engineering disciplines). After that debate the program still had to go through debate at the Faculty level and at the Senate, which aren't necessarily rubber stamps.

With all that context, its understandable that you're frustrated because the course appears to be a hoop you have to jump through when you seem pretty convinced you don't need it. You could try and get the curriculum for your program changed (that is possible, I modified the program as I was taking it!), and that may be worthwhile to ask about that process. At minimum by starting the process you'd learn more about the rationale behind its inclusion as a required course. You may find out that the content is highly relevant to your general field and that the department feels that it'd be fundamentally wrong to graduate people in your field without at least a basic level (hence 2nd year course) of knowledge in the subject.

The other way of looking at it, is that it is a 3 credit hoop in a 120 credit degree, or effectively 2.5% of your degree. It sucks to say this, but for 2.5%, its probably not worth the trouble and you should just take the course. Maybe you'll find that the knowledge in the course adds to your understanding of some subject you thought was unrelated ... or maybe not. But the reality is, the path of least resistance is just to take the course and move on.

Originally Posted by jordan19

I understand the NEED TO FILL PRE-REQS, which serve for the foundation of knowledge for upper year courses, yet this is not one of those instances. Such examples are Organic Chemistry.

But why not take the path of least resistance, if we ultimately get to the same goal its easier to do so, and we are all products of that - which is why most of us pick easy courses for electives. Why should I take a course that I am NOT interested in, I'm less inclined to do well than another course which I am actually interested in taking. Why should I put so much effort into a pre-req which, at the end of the school term, serves no other purpose but to fill the requirements in the "course calendar" which is put together by the heads of my department, who have arbitrarily decided what is best for the program. We should have choice to choose what we want and do not learn, we should have flexibility - but to a certain extent. We need to question what we actually need to learn sometimes. Now I'm not saying that we should choose all the courses pertaining to our field ourselves, of course not, but this is one of these instances of exception. If it was an important course, it would serve as a pre-requisite for higher level courses, yet it doesn't.

Lets say you need to take a third year organic chemistry for your program. Now it doesn't serve as a pre-req knowledge to any upper year courses (although it might help - but that's besides the point I'm trying to make). Unless your actually interested in Chemistry, why would you put yourself through a difficult time? Would you not contest such, or would you rather dutifully accept what other deem "important" for you to learn?

Just because a course doesn't serve as a prereq for higher-level courses, doesn't mean it isn't important and you won't gain value from learning it. Part of the implication of graduating with a Life Sciences degree from McMaster is that you will have an understanding of the course material. If you don't, then you shouldn't graduate with that degree. If you're so convinced it's hard and you'll do badly in it, then that's even more reason to take it, since you're not competent in the subject to begin with. You're here to learn. Even if you don't necessarily like a subject (for example, I despise analytical chemistry and statistics), that doesn't mean it doesn't have value and won't be useful to you in the long run. Even if you're convinced it's a waste of time, you don't actually know what specifically you'll learn from it. There's a very good reason it's part of the program. Not wanting to take it because you think it will drop your mark is a very bad reason for not wanting to take it, and I would be very disappointed in McMaster if they let you graduate without this course. It cheapens the degree of everyone who's in Life Sciences, and even the degree of everyone at McMaster.

To continue on with your organic chemistry example, I do have to take 3rd year organic chem. This is coming from someone who didn't even want to take SECOND year organic chem. I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to take it (all of the programs I was interested in required it), and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be--I think the only reason I was dreading it so much is because I'd heard (from upper years, high school teachers, etc) that 2nd year orgo is awful and hard. Now that I've taken it, I fully see the value in doing so--much more than I would have been able to prior to taking the course--and it was easier because I wasn't hating it the whole time. I had resigned myself to taking it, thus I was able to develop a positive attitude about it and it wasn't bad at all.

Looking at the courses I'll be taking for the rest of my undergrad, there are two that I really really really don't want to take. The prerequisites for these two courses were my lowest marks in 2nd year. However, there is a reason they're part of the program, and it's expected that a chemical biology graduate will have that knowledge. I'm lucky enough to be in a program where the profs ask for our feedback frequently, and take it seriously. If we tell them that a course is pointless (and give good enough reason why/another possible prerequisite to take in its place), then they'll consider changing it. It likely won't be done by the time we graduate, but it's part of making the program better. If you really feel this course is pointless, try talking to the Life Sci dept about it, but recognize that it probably won't be changed right away and you'll probably still have to take the course.

Just out of curiosity, which course is it?