Are you a Yorkie Premed? (York Premed Discussion)

[evanli78evanli]

physics 1420 is A+ doable, it's extremely dumbed-down compared to other universities, like previous posters said it overlaps with orgochem times which honestly sucks so much (took it 2 years ago). I can't recommend matt geogre enough, even students who did poorly/not as well as they liked recognized the quality of his teaching

biochem 1 with mark bayfield is extremely easy and also dumbed down in the summer(took 2 years ago), memorize slides and it's an easy a+

adv biochem is fricken bs so many mechanisms, I spent 10hrs a day for 2 weeks and got an A, also destroyed my GPA for other courses

psyc electives (health and abnormal) I crammed in a day and got As, easy with effort.  Physio I/II (in kine) are easy, exercise physio is also a joke A+ w effort

[786hunter]

Third year students debating taking animal phys should only take it if paluzzi is teaching. A+ is possible with other profs but their powerpoints are all over the place while paluzzi has some of the best slides in any course.

[Relevuv]

@786hunter are you talking about Biol 3060 and 3070 ? Because paluzzi only teaches 3070 as far as I know. Backx is teaching 3060. Do you have any tips and reviews of the prof and tips in general for the course? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

[786hunter]

On 9/7/2018 at 12:36 AM, Relevuv said:

@786hunter are you talking about Biol 3060 and 3070 ? Because paluzzi only teaches 3070 as far as I know. Backx is teaching 3060. Do you have any tips and reviews of the prof and tips in general for the course? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Both paluzzi and backx have good lectures but paluzzi's slides are so much easier to understand and study off. For both classes just listen to lecture and only write down stuff not mentioned on slides which won't be much. Basically everything is on the slides. For midterms/finals just memorize as much as you can since short answer require detailed answers. Labs are not that difficult to perform, just ask TA questions if ever stuck but the lab reports are probably harder than any other bio course. First report you do will most likely be not that good but it's not worth much and the TA should give a lot of feedback. Include everything the TA says in the correct format and make sure to have 10 references minimum to not lose easy marks. They are time consuming; mine took on average 8 hours to do. You can do them in a day when you get good at them but I wouldn't recommend it. 

 

3070 i found easier than 3060. Both courses got bell curved/boosted, 3060 had the harder final and the class average for it was really bad. Paluzzi's test also have better wording and he gives the option to choose between questions you want to answer. I wish Paluzzi taught both courses. 

 

Animal Phys is difficult and I can see why it's not reccomended compared to other 3rd year options. I believe they are the hardest third year courses and harder than virology.

Edited September 11, 2018 by 786hunter

[ubetrippin]

Does anyone have the material for Biol 4085 with Roberto Quinlan? This course is giving me a lot of trouble, especially the labs

[Unknown99]

I am planning to take BIOL 2020 , BIOL 2040, organic chem 1 , and one of the EECS 1520,1530, or 1540 next fall.

How hard is it to take BIOL 2020, 2040 ,and organic chem in the same semester?

Most probably I will take EECS 1520, can someone recommend professors for these courses and how are they in terms of tests and grades distribution and tips for studying them?

Thanks in advance

[missindep]

On 3/11/2019 at 9:29 PM, Unknown99 said:

I am planning to take BIOL 2020 , BIOL 2040, organic chem 1 , and one of the EECS 1520,1530, or 1540 next fall.

How hard is it to take BIOL 2020, 2040 ,and organic chem in the same semester?

Most probably I will take EECS 1520, can someone recommend professors for these courses and how are they in terms of tests and grades distribution and tips for studying them?

Thanks in advance

4

I don't know about the other courses, but I would highly suggest taking EECS 1520 in the summer if you can. I took it last semester:

- the prof was nice but could not teach to save his life, he even said "an A/A+ is only for exceptional students" ??? 

- I heard that around 75% of students get accused of cheating on the assignments, even though most didn't (I personally know of a few people who were wrongfully accused). Tests are complete BS, the class average for the first test was around a 45% lmao. people were doing so bad they the prof literally emailed a bunch of us asking if we could tutor others struggling.

If you do end up taking it, TAKE THE ASSIGNMENTS SERIOUSLY. they're worth 21% and are such easy marks because they're so easy. They're literally the only reason why I ended up with an A, because I genuinely had no idea what was going on in class.

Also, take what I said with a grain of salt because if you're knowledgeable in computers/CS, you might not find it that difficult. I just personally wasn't interested and had 0 knowledge.

Good luck!  

 

[PremedToronto]

On 3/11/2019 at 9:29 PM, Unknown99 said:

I am planning to take BIOL 2020 , BIOL 2040, organic chem 1 , and one of the EECS 1520,1530, or 1540 next fall.

How hard is it to take BIOL 2020, 2040 ,and organic chem in the same semester?

Most probably I will take EECS 1520, can someone recommend professors for these courses and how are they in terms of tests and grades distribution and tips for studying them?

Thanks in advance

I took EECS 1520 about 8 years ago so not sure if my input on profs matter but just make sure you take 1520 and not the other ones.

Difficult to say how hard it is to take those 3 courses in the same semester without knowing how much you are usually comfortable with but it is definitely possible

[Unknown99]

18 hours ago, PremedToronto said:

I took EECS 1520 about 8 years ago so not sure if my input on profs matter but just make sure you take 1520 and not the other ones.

Difficult to say how hard it is to take those 3 courses in the same semester without knowing how much you are usually comfortable with but it is definitely possible

The only thing in these courses that I am worried about is organic chem because I didn’t take it before. 

And also for EECS 1520, how should I study for it? From the textbook, or do they post slides and tests to practice?

and thank you for replying

[PremedToronto]

1 minute ago, Unknown99 said:

The only thing in these courses that I am worried about is organic chem because I didn’t take it before. 

And also for EECS 1520, how should I study for it? From the textbook, or do they post slides and tests to practice?

and thank you for replying

I want to say that I think I used a textbook the course recommended, but I can't recall for sure. I'll let someone who has taken this course more recently tell you about that

[Unknown99]

On 3/13/2019 at 12:13 AM, missindep said:

I don't know about the other courses, but I would highly suggest taking EECS 1520 in the summer if you can. I took it last semester:

- the prof was nice but could not teach to save his life, he even said "an A/A+ is only for exceptional students" ??? 

- I heard that around 75% of students get accused of cheating on the assignments, even though most didn't (I personally know of a few people who were wrongfully accused). Tests are complete BS, the class average for the first test was around a 45% lmao. people were doing so bad they the prof literally emailed a bunch of us asking if we could tutor others struggling.

If you do end up taking it, TAKE THE ASSIGNMENTS SERIOUSLY. they're worth 21% and are such easy marks because they're so easy. They're literally the only reason why I ended up with an A, because I genuinely had no idea what was going on in class.

Also, take what I said with a grain of salt because if you're knowledgeable in computers/CS, you might not find it that difficult. I just personally wasn't interested and had 0 knowledge.

Good luck!  

 

Thank you so much for your advice.

Is there a particular good professor for EECS or it won’t matter? Do you mind telling me who was your prof?

[Unknown99]

1 minute ago, PremedToronto said:

I want to say that I think I used a textbook the course recommended, but I can't recall for sure. I'll let someone who has taken this course more recently tell you about that

Oh okay 

Thank you so much!

[missindep]

On 3/14/2019 at 1:12 PM, Unknown99 said:

Thank you so much for your advice.

Is there a particular good professor for EECS or it won’t matter? Do you mind telling me who was your prof?

Tbh I'm not sure about other profs, but I had Aamir 

[lauren666]

Hey guys,

I had a question about GPA conversion. I currently attend York university which uses the 9.0 GPA scale. I know you have to individually convert the score of each course and take the average in order to convert it into a 4.0 GPA scale. Is there anyone who can show me an example of how to do one please? I know it's a stupid question, but I just want to make sure I am doing this the right way. If there is someone who can be kind enough to show me how I would truly be grateful. Thank you!!!

[786hunter]

On 3/31/2019 at 5:37 PM, lauren666 said:

Hey guys,

I had a question about GPA conversion. I currently attend York university which uses the 9.0 GPA scale. I know you have to individually convert the score of each course and take the average in order to convert it into a 4.0 GPA scale. Is there anyone who can show me an example of how to do one please? I know it's a stupid question, but I just want to make sure I am doing this the right way. If there is someone who can be kind enough to show me how I would truly be grateful. Thank you!!!

If you want to see.your GPA for med schools, just use the OMSAS scale. 

Let's say you have an A (8 on 9.0 GPA scale) on your grade report,

OMSAS scale will convert that to a 3.8 on the 4.0 GPA scale.

3 and 4 credit courses count as 1 on OMSAS and 6 credits count as double

So go on excel make one column your converted grades for each course (shown above) and a second column which corresponds to the credit value (1 or 2, depending on if they are full year or half year courses). In the third column multiply the first two columns.

Now you just need to divide the sum of column 3 by the number of courses (=count funtion for column 1) and that will be you grade for med school.

 

[lauren666]

Thank you so much 786hunter! that was just beautiful 

[Unknown99]

I am having chem 1000 final exam soon. I was wondering how is the final exam difficulty compared to the midterms.

They post the review packages ,but the ones they posted before midterms weren’t enough for practicing. I try answering the textbook problems. 

If anyone took this course before, could they tell me how was the final exam? How can I prepare well for it?

Thanks in advance.

[786hunter]

6 hours ago, Unknown99 said:

I am having chem 1000 final exam soon. I was wondering how is the final exam difficulty compared to the midterms.

They post the review packages ,but the ones they posted before midterms weren’t enough for practicing. I try answering the textbook problems. 

If anyone took this course before, could they tell me how was the final exam? How can I prepare well for it?

Thanks in advance.

Since the final is same for all questions the difficulty can't be compared to midterms since those are based on the prof teach the section. If you know how all the formulas work and understand the concepts you should be fine. Just do as many practice questions as you can.

[Unknown99]

On 4/15/2019 at 3:41 AM, 786hunter said:

Since the final is same for all questions the difficulty can't be compared to midterms since those are based on the prof teach the section. If you know how all the formulas work and understand the concepts you should be fine. Just do as many practice questions as you can.

Actually this semester there is just one section. The professor is Hempstead. I will try my best to practice  as much as I could.

[786hunter]

3 hours ago, Unknown99 said:

Actually this semester there is just one section. The professor is Hempstead. I will try my best to practice  as much as I could.

I think hempstead is one of the more challenging profs in terms of midterms, if I remember correctly.

[Unknown99]

13 hours ago, 786hunter said:

I think hempstead is one of the more challenging profs in terms of midterms, if I remember correctly.

Yeah the midterms had new ideas ,and each midterm had something challenging that wasn’t covered. The marking was also bad. They deducted marks on many questions in which I wrote the whole steps and even got the answer right just because I didn’t write the rule which is already apparent that I used in my steps. 

I am afraid how his final will be.

[hopefulbutnotreally]

anyone taking the mcat this summer and wants to join a group for studying/questions?

[Unknown99]

Did someone take before organic chem 1 with biol 2070 in the same semester? If someone did, how did you manage 3 labs in the same week? And how hard was biol 2070?

Thanks in advance.

[786hunter]

On 5/3/2019 at 6:46 AM, Unknown99 said:

Did someone take before organic chem 1 with biol 2070 in the same semester? If someone did, how did you manage 3 labs in the same week? And how hard was biol 2070?

Thanks in advance.

 

Organic chem 1 labs aren't too difficult, you just have to follow lab instructions. I can't say much about of BIOL 2070 since I never took it but from what I have heard, it's time consuming. Many people recommend taking 2070 during summer but if you can't, i think you'll manage. One of my friends took plant bio, animals and biol 2070 in the same semester, so it's possible.

 

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I'll write up a detailed post in the coming days for the courses I took during undergrad. Should be helpful I hope.

[Unknown99]

22 hours ago, 786hunter said:

 

Organic chem 1 labs aren't too difficult, you just have to follow lab instructions. I can't say much about of BIOL 2070 since I never took it but from what I have heard, it's time consuming. Many people recommend taking 2070 during summer but if you can't, i think you'll manage. One of my friends took plant bio, animals and biol 2070 in the same semester, so it's possible.

 

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I'll write up a detailed post in the coming days for the courses I took during undergrad. Should be helpful I hope.

It would be really great to write about the courses you took. I thought of taking it in summer ,but I am kinda worried I won't find space when I enrol in it given that many students enrol.