What's that rule about the internet where every argument or discussion will turn into talking about Hitler? I think MacInsiders has a rule like that too, except every thread eventually turns into a Health Sci battle. No matter what the original topic was


(I remembered/googled it lol-Godwin's Law)

I think most science students (including me) think humanities / soc sci courses are relatively easier is because few humanities / soc sci students could take a physics or chemistry course and do very well, but I know that if I took any humanities / soc sci course I'd do well in it...
Why? Because I'm better at courses involving essays and literature and social science/humanities in general. Have I spent more time doing them in my youth? No, not even close, but you have to work a lot more on any science course to become as good as you may be in a socsci/humanities course naturally.

Originally Posted by plums

everyone needs to stop fooling themselves....

health sci courses are EASY.
humanities/soc sci courses have a medium difficulty level.
science courses are hard.....much harder than soc sci/humanities courses.

Everyone who says differently is in denial and wants to make themselves feel better.

THE END.

That's definately not the case. My boyfriend is in fourth year Engineering and he's more than willing to admit that he would fail a soc sci/humanities class because it's too hard. But he'd ace any science class.

Originally Posted by hellohello

lol what? Of course your opinion ON THE DIFFICULTY OF A CLASS is not valid if you haven't taken the class! How do you form an opinion on the difficulty of a class if you've never taken it? By word of mouth of other people who also haven't taken it? lol.

You missed the point entirely. Sure your opinion (having taken the class) is valid - but it's biased sample, since you're obviously vouching for the point and we have nothing to prove your point other than what you are saying. Basically, it's valid in any other context but this one.

It seems that the usual health sci argument is that the high marks come from health science students just being better than other students - which I highly doubt is true. As a whole, it makes sense that the health science department has a higher average than the science or engineering departments.
However, health science students make up some 50-odd percent of the Provost's Roll (12 average). How? Science and engineering make up a fraction of that, despite having many, many more students. Either the courses in health science are easier, or everyone in health science is just smarter / harder working than even the best students in science and engineering.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

I think most science students (including me) think humanities / soc sci courses are relatively easier is because few humanities / soc sci students could take a physics or chemistry course and do very well, but I know that if I took any humanities / soc sci course I'd do well in it...
Why? Because I'm better at courses involving essays and literature and social science/humanities in general. Have I spent more time doing them in my youth? No, not even close, but you have to work a lot more on any science course to become as good as you may be in a socsci/humanities course naturally.

You're partially right. It's probably easier to pass essay-based, subjective courses. However, it's also (probably) much harder to get very, very high marks in them. Most science / engineering students wouldn't do particularly well in an essay-based, subjective class, because of the different expectations between streams. In some of the humanities classes, like history and English, critical thinking is expected right from the start, while science courses tend to 'baby' the students a bit more during first year. However, in some courses (eg. first-year linguistics) memorization should get you exactly where you want to go...

Originally Posted by plums

everyone needs to stop fooling themselves....

health sci courses are EASY.
humanities/soc sci courses have a medium difficulty level.
science courses are hard.....much harder than soc sci/humanities courses.

Everyone who says differently is in denial and wants to make themselves feel better.

THE END.

You are clearly in science.
Like I said before, if you haven't taken health sci, humanities, soc sci courses, your opinion shouldn't count.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

That's definately not the case. My boyfriend is in fourth year Engineering and he's more than willing to admit that he would fail a soc sci/humanities class because it's too hard. But he'd ace any science class.

Those are my sentiments exactly.

Of course, it all depends on the person. Science courses are easiest to me. Health sci courses are hard to me because there's so much writing and no tests. I haven't taken a soc sci course so I don't know if I'd find them easy. To other people, science is hardest because they're failing and they're in science, and all the other courses are easy because they've never taken them.

First of all, don't take me seriously, because I'm stupid.

I do life science and I'm taking Philosophy, where no matter how hard I tried I would always get a B. I thought it wasn't possible to get higher, it really ticked me off.

Then again, in my essays I didn't look at both sides of the argument, I didn't get to the thesis in a logical manner, and my structure was dookie.

Once I fixed those issues, I actually got an A. Didn't know I could .
I suppose the same could be said about every course - there are some fundamental things you have to remember going into every type of course - like problem solving, critical thinking, etc. Blah blah. To master those concepts takes a poopload of practise, no matter the discipline. I think that if you can consistently get 12's on every bloody essay, its as impressive as getting 12's on every science test.

As for Health Science, I feel that hellohello has backed himself up very well. As a health science reject, I must admit I didn't like the people that made it. It took me awhile to accept that you guys truly are very hardworking and well, you take a lot of crap. But the crap comes with the whole shitload of attention, so I suppose it all balances out. I'm also saddened to say that some other faculties don't get the attention they deserve, like nursing. Respect them nurses. That's probably the only credible thing I've said in this spiel, so do it.

Anyways, thanks for listening.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Well I have a random crackpot Sociological(Kind off) theory; BHSC students I have heard are known to take courses that aren't your run of the mill dry, knuckles down struggles. They require creative/out of the box thinking, working in a group or doing something you like. There is a guy in healthsci who is writing a thesis on Plays or Art or something :S They have infinite freedom.

However they can be allowed that because health Sci kids either a) Are Gifted enough to enter Mac with 90+ b) or more likely have a good work ethic and ability to study for long periods of time or a combo of both c) Come here with a good volunteer background or unique experiences/skills that aided their supplementary.

Hence that ability or gift is not something you lose overnight, it is only enhanced by the creative courses they go through. Though obviously they do learn Health Sci theory as well to augment their skills.

A lifeSci kid on the other hand is according to darwinism not as gifted(If you call the Canadian High School system a legit test) or wasn't able to develop the same time management skills, isn't gifted with natural flair/talent in something(eg essay writing or critical thinking) or doesn't have the same work ethic they did. Hence they are taught theory from bottom up and grind it through four years to Instill into their heads loads of content. A number of them manage to learn the skills to be equivalently capable of applying to Med School or the university is able to instill into them a passion for research and creative thinking.

Because if you look at the real world there are 9 people who do the hard work then there is the one who does the fun stuff and makes the descions at the top.

In other words its classic Quality vs Quantity. Another Analogy would be Health Scis being a less dysfunctional version of House while the Life Sci's are House's team, who while smart and capable don't have that extra edge, hence they do all the grunt work and tests while house usually doesn't get his hands dirty. A somewhat inaccurate analogy but that's the best I can think of right now.

p.s: I hope Life Scis' don't take offense! Sociological theories are usually hit and miss, but hey! At least its a bit more rational then they are just graded easier/their courses are easier because of some random reason by the Administration.

I understand where the logic behind your view comes from, but, quite frankly, it's wrong.

The average to get into HSc the year before I came to mac was about a 91% the average lifesci student next year is expected to need a 87% to get in, ArtSci requires about an 89% average to get in ISci requires 90+%. The largest difference between any of those averages is about 4% (2% if you don't even take LifeSci into consideration) and it's been shown that there is only a weak correlation between high school marks and university marks. So a population of students with what amounts to essentially the same mark (a <4% difference is almost nothing, especially when taking the correlation into consideration) are performing similarly in university except for a specific group of them. When it comes down to it, there's almost no difference between the marks and application required to get into ArtSci, ISci, and HSc, yet only HSc as a population are doing disproportionately well in University. In that case the simplest and most logical conclusion is either that their courses are easier or that their marks are inflated.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

I understand where the logic behind your view comes from, but, quite frankly, it's wrong.

The average to get into HSc the year before I came to mac was about a 91% the average lifesci student next year is expected to need a 87% to get in, ArtSci requires about an 89% average to get in ISci requires 90+%. The largest difference between any of those averages is about 4% (2% if you don't even take LifeSci into consideration) and it's been shown that there is only a weak correlation between high school marks and university marks. So a population of students with what amounts to essentially the same mark (a <4% difference is almost nothing, especially when taking the correlation into consideration) are performing similarly in university except for a specific group of them. When it comes down to it, there's almost no difference between the marks and application required to get into ArtSci, ISci, and HSc, yet only HSc as a population are doing disproportionately well in University. In that case the simplest and most logical conclusion is either that their courses are easier or that their marks are inflated.

OR health sci administration is really something else and (correctly) chose people who were more driven than others based on the sup.

to hellohello, I have taken a health science course. One only.
It was the easiest biology-type course I've taken at mac.

on the first day of class what does the prof do? he has a slide with the average from last years class. the average was around 80.
our class average for the first two tests were each above 75.

10% of our mark was free. It was 3 assignments, each which were given a pass/fail mark. (3 passes = 10%, 2 passes = 6.67%, etc)
what's the justification for this? apparently the dean says this a lot since I've heard this from many students, "studies have shown that grades hinder learning. I have the studies to prove this to you"

and I like what tailsnake wrote above.

Originally Posted by FireDragoonX

to hellohello, I have taken a health science course. One only.
It was the easiest biology-type course I've taken at mac.

on the first day of class what does the prof do? he has a slide with the average from last years class. the average was around 80.
our class average for the first two tests were each above 75.

10% of our mark was free. It was 3 assignments, each which were given a pass/fail mark. (3 passes = 10%, 2 passes = 6.67%, etc)
what's the justification for this? apparently the dean says this a lot since I've heard this from many students, "studies have shown that grades hinder learning. I have the studies to prove this to you"

and I like what tailsnake wrote above.

Which one?
I noticed you were in commerce/business, and I don't want to make assumptions, but I do wonder how many biology-type courses you have taken at Mac and why you took a health sci course.

And 10% of a lot of courses is free. In math, 10% of our marks is online assignments that you can repeat until you get perfect.
In chem, you get an extra 0.5% added to your mark if you get perfect on the safety quiz which you are also allowed to repeat until you get perfect.

That's the dean's philosophy. True. But your marks do tally up at the end on a scale, and you ARE graded. If he really didn't care, he would just give everyone 12s and have done with it.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

I understand where the logic behind your view comes from, but, quite frankly, it's wrong.

The average to get into HSc the year before I came to mac was about a 91% the average lifesci student next year is expected to need a 87% to get in, ArtSci requires about an 89% average to get in ISci requires 90+%. The largest difference between any of those averages is about 4% (2% if you don't even take LifeSci into consideration) and it's been shown that there is only a weak correlation between high school marks and university marks. So a population of students with what amounts to essentially the same mark (a <4% difference is almost nothing, especially when taking the correlation into consideration) are performing similarly in university except for a specific group of them. When it comes down to it, there's almost no difference between the marks and application required to get into ArtSci, ISci, and HSc, yet only HSc as a population are doing disproportionately well in University. In that case the simplest and most logical conclusion is either that their courses are easier or that their marks are inflated.

There are so many conspiracy theories about health sci, it's actually kind of amusing!

Originally Posted by hellohello

Which one?
I noticed you were in commerce/business, and I don't want to make assumptions,

Contrary to what his profile says, I'm fairly certain he isn't in commerce. It's been kind of amusing trying to find out what faculty he is in though.

All I know is that he has taken some econ classes, some finance classes, some bio classes and a health sci course.

So whatever that equates to; Probably some kind of an Art Sci/Econ major perhaps. I'm leaning towards econ though!

Originally Posted by hellohello

Which one?
I noticed you were in commerce/business, and I don't want to make assumptions, but I do wonder how many biology-type courses you have taken at Mac and why you took a health sci course.

And 10% of a lot of courses is free. In math, 10% of our marks is online assignments that you can repeat until you get perfect.
In chem, you get an extra 0.5% added to your mark if you get perfect on the safety quiz which you are also allowed to repeat until you get perfect.

That's the dean's philosophy. True. But your marks do tally up at the end on a scale, and you ARE graded. If he really didn't care, he would just give everyone 12s and have done with it.

hth sci 3i03

0.5% in chem is a bad example
yes, some courses, especially in first year, give you free marks, like the 10% in math. but the majority do not.

I never wrote that you are not graded. By grades hindering learning he means that he could, and probably does, give everyone in health sci courses a good grade and defend his actions by saying "if I gave them a bad grade they wouldn't learn as well, hurrrrr"

Originally Posted by hellohello

And 10% of a lot of courses is free. In math, 10% of our marks is online assignments that you can repeat until you get perfect.
In chem, you get an extra 0.5% added to your mark if you get perfect on the safety quiz which you are also allowed to repeat until you get perfect.

I didn't think 0.5% made as big of a difference as 10%, but I suppose I'm wrong. I'm not in health sci, after all

Originally Posted by hellohello

There are so many conspiracy theories about health sci, it's actually kind of amusing!

It seems that there's only the one, inflated grades theory.