Ask questions to current 1T6's

[ACHQ]

Hey guys/girls,

 

Now that interviews are over and everyone is waiting to hear back (and also trying to decide between schools), I thought of starting a thread for anyone who interviewed to ask current 1T6's about UofT (there are many of us that view this board), that either they didn't at the interview or were too shy/nervous/scared to bring up.

 

Ask away!

[Big Bird]

Students at other schools say that you folks are extremely busy with lectures and curricular activities. They say that you have less time for extracurriculars, shadowing, athletics, and so forth, especially compared to Mac. They say that your class is nowhere near as close-knit as Western/Queen's.

 

Is there any truth to these worries?

[Guest padag]

Roughly what proportion of you live on residence and how many of you simply stay at home because you live nearby?

[ACHQ]

Roughly what proportion of you live on residence and how many of you simply stay at home because you live nearby?

 

I'll answer this one because its simpler and shorter ahhaha. For the St.George campus, by rough estimate I would say the majority of class (~80+ %, if not much more) lives in downtown Toronto. For MAM I'm not 100% sure but I think the majority of those guys live in Mississauga too.

 

Students at other schools say that you folks are extremely busy with lectures and curricular activities. They say that you have less time for extracurriculars, shadowing, athletics, and so forth, especially compared to Mac. They say that your class is nowhere near as close-knit as Western/Queen's.

 

Is there any truth to these worries?

 

hahahahah that's understandable from an outsiders perspective. I don't know how often med student are in lecture at other schools, but I can comment on this by giving you the hours we have for lectures.

 

In STF there are a few weeks (not together) that we have 16 hours of lecture a week. Most of the other weeks its more like 6-10 hours (because of anatomy labs). Some weeks we are in lecture for only 3-4 hours or less (usually because an exam is coming up). STF is definitely the most busy part of 1st year.

 

In MNU we have only 8 hours of lecture a week. Usually 2-4 hours of seminar a week and about 4 hours a week for PBL (but only for 5 of the 10 weeks have PBL).

 

In BRB we have about 8-12 hours of lecture a week, 4 hours a week of neuroanatomy labs, and 4 hours for PBL a week (for the first half). The second half we have no more neuroanatomy labs and seminars 2 hours a week.

 

Every week we have ASCM (clinical skills) which are Friday mornings from 8-12. We also have DOCH (community health) from 1-5 on wednesday afternoon (DOCH could be lecture or tutorials or whatever).

 

Note the only things mandatory are: Ethics seminars, Anatomy labs, PBL tutorials, ASCM, and DOCH tutorials. Everything else is optional. Lectures are recorded (both audio and visual). Many students don't go to class and do everything from home. Others go to class and manage and are involved in various activities. For example, I was involved in intramurals during STF and MNU (intramurals ended by BRB).

 

Various students in my class are involved in many different extracurricular activities including (but not limited to): Intramurals (we have a sports team for almost every sport), class council, MedSoc, daffy (which is an awesome play put on by med students), volunteering in various community programs, shadowing/observerships, medicine related interest groups (e.g. family medicine interest group, general surgery interest groups etc... we have interest groups for all the specialties), as well as of course Academy challenges! (which are little competitions between all the academy's, and in the end the winner gets the academy cup!).

 

As for being close knit, I guess it depends on your perspective. We definitely have a larger class, and so its harder to know EVERYONE. However despite this I feel we have a pretty close knit class, given the interactions I have witnessed and experienced. There are many events to get people to come out to and so forth. Also, the academy system allows you to get to know a smaller group of people pretty well (I know pretty much everyone in my academy). And even with that we still hang out together and go out for dinners/post exam sushi/lunch in style. Also it's pretty funny, but in class we will actually notice someone whose not a medical student (sometimes we have grad students taking classes with us). So I would say we are pretty tight knit despite the large class size, you just have to make an effort!

[Big Bird]

Thanks for the detailed reply ACHQ!

 

Some more questions for you (or any of you other friendly neighbourhood 1T6's!)

 

1. Do you need a car if you live downtown? How reasonable are your travel times in first/second year? I like to be everywhere in-person.

 

2. How has it been finding a place to live? Everything's so expensive downtown. How close are you to your classes and the places where you need to be?

 

3. Can you shadow in Mississauga?

 

4. Do you get a nifty lab coat like Mac?

 

5. How are your professors? Are they likeable? Friendly to students? Do they take on active mentorship roles in training the doctors of tomorrow? (Or are they disengaged like some undergrad U of T profs?)

 

6. What's your least favourite thing about U of T med?

 

7. What's your favourite thing about U of T med?

 

8. Did the U of T name have anything to do with your acceptance there? Did you consider other schools?

 

9. Where would you go if U of T was not an option? Why?

 

10. If you were a dinosaur, which dinosaur would you be? Why? What if you could only be friends with other dinosaurs of that type?

[ACHQ]

Thanks for the detailed reply ACHQ!

 

Some more questions for you (or any of you other friendly neighbourhood 1T6's!)

 

1. Do you need a car if you live downtown? How reasonable are your travel times in first/second year? I like to be everywhere in-person.

 

2. How has it been finding a place to live? Everything's so expensive downtown. How close are you to your classes and the places where you need to be?

 

3. Can you shadow in Mississauga?

 

4. Do you get a nifty lab coat like Mac?

 

5. How are your professors? Are they likeable? Friendly to students? Do they take on active mentorship roles in training the doctors of tomorrow? (Or are they disengaged like some undergrad U of T profs?)

 

6. What's your least favourite thing about U of T med?

 

7. What's your favourite thing about U of T med?

 

8. Did the U of T name have anything to do with your acceptance there? Did you consider other schools?

 

9. Where would you go if U of T was not an option? Why?

 

10. If you were a dinosaur, which dinosaur would you be? Why? What if you could only be friends with other dinosaurs of that type?

 

1) Travel times are fine if you are living downtown. If you are at WB or Fitz the travels times are a joke (usually). Us PB'ers have a bit more traveling to do, but the people at Sunnybrook get a shuttle (takes 20-30 min to get from downtown to Sunnybrook), and the Markham people get a taxi (but their only there in first year once a week). The people at North York General end up having to either drive or take TTC (again usually only once a week). We are in hospitals for ASCM, DOCH tutorials, and PBL. Everything else is in MSB (sometimes after ASCM if we have a seminar its usually at the hospital we are at).

 

2) Finding a place isn't hard. Finding a good place at a good price is difficult. Its probably one of the drawbacks of living in downtown Toronto. Everything is pretty pricey. That being said, if you are keen on getting a "good" (I say good because you still pay ~$800/month) then you can find something if you look hard enough. The further you get from downtown the cheaper it gets (but not by much).

 

3) Yep. People from anywhere and shadow anywhere. Sometimes its just easier to shadow at your academy because you have all the badges and what not, but most of the time you can get around that anyways.

 

4) hahaha Nope, not as pre-clerks. As clerks I guess you can get a white coat if the service requires it. Some (if not most) actually don't require it.

 

5) Like any place there will be some great profs and some not so good ones. The one thing all the course directors have in common is that they really take feedback to try and improve the course in the future (and sometimes on the fly). Some blocks we get continuous lectures from the same professors/clinicians, others we don't (where they have guest lectures for each different topic). For the most part I find the professors likeable friendly and engaging. The clinician lecturers are often doing seminars as well, and are very open to having student shadow/do observerships with them.

 

6) That's a good question. I think one thing irks me a little, and it be nice to know this exist at other schools (I'm sure it does to some extent). But some times we learn things that I (personally) find are very useless, that a very small proportion of the class will ever use again (if at all). I think maybe its because they want to try and encourage basic science research, but really it can get annoying. For the most part I think this is the minority, and when I come across those lectures, I just end up not studying them, or really just skim through quickly.

 

7) Its tough to say my favorite thing. If I had to choose one, it be the great teaching that we get at some of the best hospitals.

 

8) I actually can't really comment, since UofT was my only interview. To be honest "prestige" doesn't make a real difference from an education stand point. Maybe the big name hospitals (such as SickKids, St. Mikes, UHN and Sunnybrook) might sway me but can't comment on something that I didn't have! But if I was to get multiple acceptances, a big reason to choose UofT would be location (its home for me!)

 

9) Again I didn't have the option of other schools. But lets say hypothetically I had all the schools in Canada to choose from EXCEPT UofT. I would have gone to McMaster, mainly because of a few reasons a) It's still pretty close to home for me (I'm from Toronto) I did my undergrad there, so its familiar c) I have a lot of friends still at Mac Med/residency

 

10) Again tough question. I think after watching Jurassic Park growing up I have to say a T-Rex (I know typical right?). That thing is a BEAST, its the king of the "prehistoric" jungle! Also knowing nothing could eat me is a nice plus. A very close second would be a Pterodactyl, because I would LOVE to be able to fly. I think if I could only be friends with other dinosaurs of that type I could live with that. I'm pretty friendly individual and can adapt

 

Hope that helps!

[RevSphere18]

Thanks for the detailed reply ACHQ!

 

Some more questions for you (or any of you other friendly neighbourhood 1T6's!)

 

4. Do you get a nifty lab coat like Mac?

 

Once you try your first pair of scrubs, you will never go back to a lab coat

[Tee88]

Once you try your first pair of scrubs, you will never go back to a lab coat

 

haha wait, no white coat ceremony? Is there a different orientation event tradition that U of T puts on instead?

[ACHQ]

haha wait, no white coat ceremony? Is there a different orientation event tradition that U of T puts on instead?

 

I have to agree scrubs are wayyyy better than a white coat.

 

And yes at UofT we have our own Stethoscope Ceremony

[Big Bird]

6) That's a good question. I think one thing irks me a little, and it be nice to know this exist at other schools (I'm sure it does to some extent). But some times we learn things that I (personally) find are very useless, that a very small proportion of the class will ever use again (if at all). I think maybe its because they want to try and encourage basic science research, but really it can get annoying. For the most part I think this is the minority, and when I come across those lectures, I just end up not studying them, or really just skim through quickly.

 

That's what the students at Mac said. Too much basic sciences, will not necessarily help you be a better doctor to memorize these, etc. How much extra basic science/pathways do you learn? Are they *must know* info to do well on tests? Or just background information that you can forget about until you need it (at which point you can wikipedia the pathway... But still be familiar with it).

 

Aside from that, how is the testing? Often/difficult?

 

Thanks *so* much for answering these, ACHQ. U of T was my first interview and I really didn't know what to find out about during my visit.

 

How abundant are scholarship opportunities for med students?

[Tee88]

Thanks ACHQ, one more quick question; do you pick the academy you're in or are you assigned academies as of May 14th's pending dooms day ?

[ACHQ]

That's what the students at Mac said. Too much basic sciences, will not necessarily help you be a better doctor to memorize these, etc. How much extra basic science/pathways do you learn? Are they *must know* info to do well on tests? Or just background information that you can forget about until you need it (at which point you can wikipedia the pathway... But still be familiar with it).

 

Aside from that, how is the testing? Often/difficult?

 

Thanks *so* much for answering these, ACHQ. U of T was my first interview and I really didn't know what to find out about during my visit.

 

How abundant are scholarship opportunities for med students?

 

hahahaha the guys at Mac would say that. So let me elaborate a bit.

 

I think UofT does a good job of giving you a complete background in basic sciences and some foundations of clinical sciences in 1st year needed to do well in ALL specialties in the future. That being said, somethings for some people will be useless and for others would be very useful. Example, we get a pretty good background in histology. Some people will likely not use it much (or ever), others (such as people going into pathology, dermatology, oncology to name a few) would find it useful. So sometimes you will hear that we learn too much basic stuff if you include things like the above example (a similar example could be made with embryology).

 

The stuff I was referring to though was in extreme minority (at most 5% maybe?) and most of it was not very detailed anyways (in terms of pathways). Most people have some background in that field too. I just found it a waste of time and not relevant (but again some people will end up doing something related and therefore relevant). And like I said it wasn't the MUST KNOW things, very minor things that sometimes didn't even pop up on tests, and if it did it was like 1 question that I would guess on.

 

The major things I believe are emphasized appropriately, and pretty important in becoming a good doctor (e.g. knowing the differential for anion gap acidosis or something like that).

 

Testing in first term is a bit more often than the rest of the year. After the first 6-8 weeks (which only includes 2 exams) in first term (total of 16 weeks) we have 3-4 exams that are separated by only 2 weeks each. In MNU though we only have 3 exams, and BRB we only have 2. For DOCH we only have two exams total for the year, and for ASCM we have 2ish OSCEs. The tests aren't that bad, even though we can sometimes come out thinking we did bad. The class average is usually around ~80%.

 

The scholarship opportunities are huge at UofT. There is a link to it on their website, you should check it out for details.

 

Happy to help!

[thehumanmacbook]

1. Anyone commute from Finch station to the academies downtown?

 

2. Do you ever feel that it's more competitive than UG? Especially if you find people from your year who are interested in the same specialty as you?

 

3. With such a heavy lecture schedule, is it still possible to do research/observerships during the year? How do you "catch up" if you need to?

 

Thanks so much. Really looking forward to your answers!

[ACHQ]

Thanks ACHQ, one more quick question; do you pick the academy you're in or are you assigned academies as of May 14th's pending dooms day ?

 

hahah dooms day, I think that's what I called it last year too.

 

After getting in and the class is filled, everyone gets an email about ranking academy's. So you get some choice in the matter. Now because obviously some academy's are more popular because of their location, not everyone will get their first choice. Most (this year all) people get their 1st or 2nd choice though.

[ACHQ]

1. Anyone commute from Finch station to the academies downtown?

 

2. Do you ever feel that it's more competitive than UG? Especially if you find people from your year who are interested in the same specialty as you?

 

3. With such a heavy lecture schedule, is it still possible to do research/observerships during the year? How do you "catch up" if you need to?

 

Thanks so much. Really looking forward to your answers!

 

1) I think there might be a few people that commute from Finch, I'm not 100% sure. There are definitely people who commute from further to downtown (e.g. Mississauga and Scarborough to name a few)

 

2) MORE competitive?!?! ahahhahahah, I really don't think so. I feel everyone is very relaxed and chill in our class and willing to help each other out. In fact whenever we have exams coming up people end up posting some sort of packages or notes for studying. So yeah I don't think its competitive.

 

3) For sure! The lectures are recorded so its easy to catch up later on in the day or the next. I'm someone who goes to class and still find time to shadow (I've done GIM a few times so far, hematology, cardiac surgery, ER a couple times, Family, and have other stuff set up soon), we do get some afternoon/mornings off and so you just have to plan and contact people accordingly.

[BiggiEeEe]

Approximately what proportion of the class do graduate students represent?

[ACHQ]

Approximately what proportion of the class do graduate students represent?

 

I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of around 40%. Historically UofT has about 30-40% of graduate students in the class. I'm almost certain (my own opinion) that this correlates with the % of graduate students applying and receiving interviews (which is probably around 30-40% as well)

[lost__in__space]

ACHQ, where do all the cool kids sit in class?

[RevSphere18]

That's what the students at Mac said. Too much basic sciences, will not necessarily help you be a better doctor to memorize these, etc. How much extra basic science/pathways do you learn? Are they *must know* info to do well on tests? Or just background information that you can forget about until you need it (at which point you can wikipedia the pathway... But still be familiar with it).

 

Aside from that, how is the testing? Often/difficult?

 

Thanks *so* much for answering these, ACHQ. U of T was my first interview and I really didn't know what to find out about during my visit.

 

How abundant are scholarship opportunities for med students?

 

One thing you have to remember about UofT is that they love their research. This is why I believe they want you to learn all the basic sciences you can, since they're hoping they might trigger your scientist within.

 

1. Anyone commute from Finch station to the academies downtown?

 

Thanks so much. Really looking forward to your answers!

 

I commute up and down from Finch station to class usually and it's not TOO bad, but I admit it can be taxing after a while especially with the 12:30am closures of the subway going north nowadays. Takes about 30 minutes or so from Finch to College stn and then you just walk across to the campus/UHN hospitals

[thehumanmacbook]

One thing you have to remember about UofT is that they love their research. This is why I believe they want you to learn all the basic sciences you can, since they're hoping they might trigger your scientist within.

 

 

 

I commute up and down from Finch station to class usually and it's not TOO bad, but I admit it can be taxing after a while especially with the 12:30am closures of the subway going north nowadays. Takes about 30 minutes or so from Finch to College stn and then you just walk across to the campus/UHN hospitals

 

Thanks for your answer! Would want to commute to save money, but if it takes too long then I'll probably change my mind if I get accepted/choose into TO.

[quackster]

Re: learning useless basic science content

 

In first year, it's easy to see why you might find some of the information "useless". I certainly did during first year. In second year, it becomes apparent how USEFUL that information is, nay, sometimes even important, and you will be thankful for having been taught the whole picture.

[page_matrix]

when would class start for the 1t7?

[quackster]

O-week Aug 19 and classes Aug 26, if I'm not mistaken.

[Big Bird]

Re: learning useless basic science content

 

In first year, it's easy to see why you might find some of the information "useless". I certainly did during first year. In second year, it becomes apparent how USEFUL that information is, nay, sometimes even important, and you will be thankful for having been taught the whole picture.

 

Quackster, can you give an example?

[RevSphere18]

Does anyone have any insight on the 20 month CReMs program? Is it a lot to handle during the school year? Any thoughts on the 20 month program versus the summer program? Is the program competitive?

Thanks for taking the time to do this, I appreciate it !

 

Summer program, there were about 93 CREMS projects available, and they said they will give out about 60-70 awards this year. For those 93 projects, there is some competition of course as there will be overlap in what people are interested in. But in addition to CREMS there is PERCS (pediatric research award) which has another 10 spots or so.

 

I can't comment much on the 20 month one since the people in my year are a couple of months in but they are able to manage the time fairly nicely. There is a recommendation of 5 hours/week to dedicate during the school year for research in the 20 month one, which is fairly reasonable

 

Re: learning useless basic science content

 

In first year, it's easy to see why you might find some of the information "useless". I certainly did during first year. In second year, it becomes apparent how USEFUL that information is, nay, sometimes even important, and you will be thankful for having been taught the whole picture.

 

This is why it's great to have 2nd years here too!