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Mcmaster Life Sci


mood123

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Thanks @blu, @KIN@Loo and @stickynote!!

 

I'm not bitter about health sci; and I personally wanna go to McMaster, I just wanna ensure that I'm going to a fair school; and a program that will prepare me well for med school.

 

 

Oh and last question; I hear that u specialize in the second year? What specialty should I do ( eg. Biochem, neuro, honours life sci, etc). I know this is based on individual interests, but I still want insight into the different studies??

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks @blu, @KIN@Loo and @stickynote!!

 

I'm not bitter about health sci; and I personally wanna go to McMaster, I just wanna ensure that I'm going to a fair school; and a program that will prepare me well for med school.

 

 

Oh and last question; I hear that u specialize in the second year? What specialty should I do ( eg. Biochem, neuro, honours life sci, etc). I know this is based on individual interests, but I still want insight into the different studies??

 

You don't have to specialize. I recommend against it rather. Sticking with honours life sci gives you the most flexibility and freedom in terms of you choosing to study what you are interested in. Going into biochem, for example, may be great and all, but it forces you to take courses you may not want to take, or that just plain suck/are extremely difficult (*cough stem cells cough*). This year the Life Sci program is creating sub-streams within honours life sci to give people a "focus" in a certain direction. Might be something to look into. 

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Going into any bio programs in Canada is like gambling on med/dental/pharm school. Many people just don't realize how low the acceptance rate is, or sometimes even refuse to acknowledge the low rate. If you are in a bio program and can't get into any of those professional schools, you have three options:

 

1. get another degree that you can use to get a job = 4 years wasted (grad school and postdoc are not jobs)

2. become a sales rep which doesn't require a degree, again 4 years wasted

3. go into grad school and have you and your entire family and your children and your children's children suffer for eternity.

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Honestly, the best pre-med or pre-professional program is Business/Commerce. Think about it, many schools have dropped prerequisites all together and you could take science courses on the side to prep for MCAT. Now unless you're at a top school (Ivey, Queen's, etc) that have a notorious curve, it is relatively easier to maintain a 3.7+ and with hard work, a 3.8 is more possible than in a program like Life Science. And best of all, if med doesn't work out, you have an employable degree. All you have to do is network a little and start in a $45-50K job a few months after graduation. That is way better than ending with sub-standard GPA in a science program and not having many options left.

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Very few people seems to have "Plan B" in case they won't get to med school. Whilst one should be positive and focused,  the one-path-only mindset is risky. You can see desperate fights for GPA, taking graduate degrees or useless (most often) 2nd degrees, applying 3 times etc. With all that, some people will get in but most still won't.  It is important to have something to fall back on. Science programs are not the best to  give you a base for a life without med school. Nowadays, even getting teacher's job is problematic.

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With all the talk of doing non-traditional degrees, in general I still have noticed that the majority of students are from science backgrounds and most of those that aren't decided medicine at a later date, rather than intending to go into medicine but having a backup career. In addition the number of students is generally evenly distributed between various life sci programs with the only exception of Mac's health science. 

 

One pathway I recommend for those interested in Business and Medicine is to get AEO to Ivey and do BMSc for your first two years, if your grades are decent in your first year, then stick with BMSc and drop Ivey to maintain your grades, but if you decide against medicine at any time you can switch into Ivey and come out with a solid degree from a prestigious business program. (With that being said, everyone I know who did this pathway i.e. BMSc/AEO which is around 4-5 people, they all went into business in the end, the people I know in med who did BMSc did straight BMSc and I do know some people from Ivey who got into med as well). 

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