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What undergrad program for a toxicology masters?

 
Old 04-11-2016 at 11:34 PM   #1
41m33st6
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What undergrad program for a toxicology masters?
As it stands, I'm sorta interested in something like toxicology down the road. This could be steered two ways: neurotoxicology or environmental toxicology. At U of T and Guelph, undergrad programs focused on tox specifically are offered, whereas elsewhere those are graduate programs. My question is: a)
Would it be better for one to begin specializing right off the bat, or do something general first and then jump into in in grad school? I see it two ways. You could do a specialist undergrad and come out with a deeper understanding and some networking with profs you might see in grad school, or do something more general and perhaps easier and have higher marks for grad school. Then again, if you did go into sth specialized, would a graduate school favour you over others?
b) What do you think are good programs for neuro/environmental tox anyway? There's Hon Health Sci, Integrated Sci, Kinesiology, Life Sci, Chemical & Physical Sci, and Environmental Sci. Again I suppose it comes down to ease of the program, individual interests and the above question. Theres also the business about minors and concentrations that I'd appreciate input on...
Old 04-11-2016 at 11:59 PM   #2
Imperious
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I believe at any school no matter how specialized, your first 2-3 years are pretty much the same. Whether you're in a toxicology program or a general Life science program, you're still taking the general cell biologies, chemistries, maths, biochemistries, etc. and so you don't really start much of the toxicology till your late undergrad.

Neither doing a specialized or a general undergraduate degree give for sure give you the marks for grad school. It really depends on you, your study habits, and your interests. As I have said in the other post, the Level 1 entry programs you'll want to look at are Life Science, Health Science or Integrated Science. Chemical Physical Science maybe but you'll be doing a harder physics than everyone else. If you choose the Life Science route, you can apply for entry to the Biology + Pharmacology program which is a third year entry program (apply at the end of level 2). You can also choose to enter Biochemistry or Chemical Biology. Take a look at the courses that you will end up taking in other toxicology programs as well in the programs here at McMaster in the undergraduate calendar here.

I assume though, for toxicology, you'll need a strong base in biology, biochemistry and a very strong base in chemistry as I assume there will be a lot of mechanisms, reactions and kinetics involved. But just a heads up, many students' goals change after taking Organic Chem

41m33st6 says thanks to Imperious for this post.
Old 04-12-2016 at 12:19 AM   #3
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Yeah I keep hearing about organic chem!! Is the difficulty of mac's orgo comparable to that of UW, UWO etc? Is it just hard everywhere? And if I could just squeeze in a little question, I hear hon health sci, despite being so hard to get into, is a bird program. Very easy to get 11s and 12s, which allows you to get ito research experience for example. That'd be a plus if its true. But the program is pretty tailored to help you get into med school and all with interview practice and whatnot, and I'm inclined to think it doesnt match what a prospective tox grad would benefit from - thoughts? You also didnt mention environmental science - is there too little chem/bio emphasis there?
Old 04-12-2016 at 12:54 AM   #4
Imperious
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I heard from a friend that orgo at western is easier than mcmaster but I'm not sure since I haven't done it at Western. I really dislike orgo here at mcmaster. The profs suck and it makes it hard to get myself interested and motivated to even study. It's like all reactions and mechanisms and I feel like it's just a gamble whether my brain can recall even a few of them on the day of the exam.

I am not in health sci lol but ya most of what you said sounds correct from what I've heard as well. Though I wouldn't say it's "bird" because I know that they do put in quite a bit of work through. They have group inquiry projects and group projects are annoying as hell and are by no means easy. I was able to experience a group inquiry project in Biochem 2BB3 (Biochem and Health Sci are pretty closely related) and I did not like it at all as it was so open ended and vague and the premise of our project was really interesting but in the end it turned out to be absolute shit because we had no resources to go off of because our topic was TOO novel compared to the other groups topics. I've also heard that a lot of their courses get crazy adjustments and marks are very inflated. But you still have to put in a lot of effort in keeping up with everything. If you look at the statistics of McMaster's health sci program, ~50% of students get into medical school.

I think the difference between Health Sci and LifeSci/Biology is that Health Sci is more application, problem solving and critical thinking whereas the LifeSci/Biology stream is pure memorization and you can be great at memorization and get high marks and not understand jackshit regarding what you learned. It was something that was really frustrating for me to adjust to when I first came here because my high school biology was more problem solving and critical thinking than just memorizing an entire textbook. From what I've heard, just being in Health Sci gives you a safety net regarding GPA. Also another thing I forgot to mention is that most health sci courses don't have exams. Your final mark is usually based on a group presentation project, take home exams or an interview with the instructor. Like in first year, your only exams are the two chemistries, math, physics and electives, whereas all other programs will have 4-5 exams per semester. I believe you can still take some toxicology related courses in health sci as I remember someone telling me they were enrolled in the nursing toxicology course? Not 100% sure.

Enviro Sci is more environment, climate, geography and not really enough biology/chemistry. The main programs you should be looking at are Biology+Pharmacology, Biochem, ChemBio and HealthSci.
Old 04-12-2016 at 01:06 AM   #5
Imperious
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Another problem I have with a lot of the biology profs and the orgo profs is that a lot of them are not good at teaching. Like it's great and all that they have PhDs and stuff and theyre probably more than qualified to teach in their field but that doesn't mean that they all should. A lot of them don't really know how to introduce topics, explain them and make it interesting to students. They don't really address the "Why should I care about these topics", "Why are these topics important and how are they applicable to other fields". I have also noticed that a lot of times, they bring up certain concepts that they don't explain in depth and they don't explain it well (almost as if they don't actually understand the topics either but it happened to show up when they searched it on wikipedia) and you don't understand it and it isn't until a later course that you take in your undergrad career that you revisit those concepts and finally understand what they are but by then it's already way too late. It makes it really difficult to learn material when you don't understand it fully and as a result you end up superficially memorizing the content just for the assessments and forgetting it all 10 seconds after you leave the exam room.

Another problem I have is with profs using textbooks by the publishing company Wiley because Wiley provides the profs with powerpoint presentations and all the profs I've had who have used Wiley textbook just read off the powerpoint slides word for word and those slides are word for word from the textbook so it makes so sense to be paying ~650 dollars to enroll in the course for a professor to read a book to you. You can literally do it at home in your pyjamas.
Old 04-12-2016 at 01:25 AM   #6
41m33st6
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Noteworthy info here. Any comments on the science faculty on the whole? This isnt a widespread problem/sentiment is it?
Regarding health vs life sci, I feel like straight memorization is less hassle compared to group work and case studies, but obviously great volumes of content to memorize can overcome anyone. I figure mac lifesci isnt nearly as brutal as u of t, but on par with western and the likes?
I appreciate the responses! Mind if I message you?
Old 04-12-2016 at 02:59 AM   #7
Imperious
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Straight memorization is less hassle but you can learn much more from group work and case studies because it forces you to understand the material in order to make a convincing presentation and at the same time you're using peer reviewed articles that are current which allows you to educate yourself with what they're currently doing in that field. It's hard to compare different universities with each other though since you can't give an informed opinion unless you've attended multiple universities for your undergrad. I don't mind if you message me if you want more info, but this is just my opinion, it's probably best if you can get the opinions of a few students



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