Dalhousie kine students applying for PT

[Esa]

Does the Dal PT program admissions care if you took some courses in the summer?

Also, I'm currently a second year kine student transferring to dal so I don't have any contact with kine students as of yet. I wanted to know your thoughts on the following courses in terms of difficulty:

KINE 2310, KINE 2320, KINE 2430, KINE 3250, KINE 3500, PHYC 1310, KINE 1108

Thank you.

[NNL]

Hi there, 

I am a Dalhousie student (grew up in NS) going into year 3. 

I know all of these courses very well except KINE3500 which I will be taking in the fall.

KINE 2310 : Unless you are very strong on physiology material, I would say this is the most challenging course in our entire kin program. Derek is the prof; he is really nice and super passionate about teaching this course. However, the content is very heavy and he expects you to have a strong background in physiology knowledge in order to build layers for exercise physiology material. I honestly took this course twice and did much better the second time, and I even enjoyed it more (only because I do enjoy learning physiology). Additionally, the lab component is heavy in terms of writing lab reports; however, hoping you will have the opportunity to do the labs in person, this will be the most FUN and coolest lab you will ever experience!!!! You will get to use a bunch of equipment and software to literally test VO2 max/repiratory function/physicality etc !! I legit died from participating the VO2 max and wingate test on the cycling machine but I learnt so much because of these hands-on experience. Be prepared ;)!

KINE 2320 : up until this year, we had the BEST prof in our program and her name is Janice Moreside. I can't express enough how amazing she was at teaching this course; but it was very intense! Another heavy material course because you literally have to know all the muscles and actions, some ligaments and finally, movement analysis (the most important component) which Janice was incredibly good at teaching. Unfortunately, she just retired this year :(, she definitely will not be returning. So I have no idea who is going to teach this now, though I have some ideas who could teach this (some of previous TAs in the department I know, and if they are the ones, they are amazing!). When Janice taught us, my most favourite thing in the course was the lab exam (you are given 10-15 stations and each stations have models with colors indicating what it is that you have to write, and you're given 50 seconds to figure it out, then the bell rings you have to go to the next station XD. nerve racking but so fun)

KINE 2430 : I had an interesting experience with this course. This course has been a struggle for Dal to find any prof or instructors that can teach this course consistently throughout. I signed up for this course last year originally, but dropped it without W because the instructor we had at that time was a horrible teacher. He was a PhD researcher candidate that got accepted to Harvard the year after. He was incredibly smart but no social cues and teaching experience, unfortunately. Anywho, I took this again this year and the instructor we had this time was AMAZING- she is a researcher and works at rehab centres working with people with parkinsons and other neuro disorders- the way she presented slides and coherent + articulate speech along with engagement with students was it for me. I got A in this course and could not thank her teaching skills and personality more. It is a very interesting material though if you enjoy psychology and physiology combined aspect.

KINE 3250 : hah, Jo Welsh... lol she is quite something. She is a senior prof in the kin department so she has been around for a long time. She is a very nice lady, but when it comes to teaching... she is incredibly disorganized. Her disorganization showed even more when she had to deliver the course online :S it was brutal. However, the course material is not heavy especially if you enjoy learning about nutrition (her lectures are very hard to follow because she is boring unfortunately). This might be due to her disorganization though, because she was so behind that we simply did not cover more materials we should have. The exams were all online so we had the opportunity to check our notes and books too. So in person class may be quite different. Additionally, this course contains a lot of group work- hopefully in person style help you to meet people along the way. I did this virtually which made it really difficult to actually connect with people, per say. None-the-less, this course can be fun and challenging at the same time! 

PHYC 1310 : :S so.... unless you have a strong background in physics, this course.... gives you the most pain that every KINE student can relate to ahha. The content of this course unfortunately does not prepare or relate to the second year course called Biomechanics. This course is heavy driven for vectors, force, kinetics and some fluids which are actually useful for Kinesiology but they teach you based on physics theoretical approach, if you know what I mean. Biomechanics content are much more applied to the real world (human bodies) where as this course is just very physics driven because all the medical profession students including radiology and dentistry have to take this course. The material is very very heavy even though we had the BEST prof in our school that was awarded numerous times (Ted Monchesky). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he is going to teach this year, not sure what happened :(. The TAs are super helpful though, they host weekly sessions where you go and get help from which helped me a lot. Be prepared for this one unless you love physics!

KINE 1108 : I did not enjoy this course as much only because the class times were too early for me and the exams were definitely more challenging than the difficulty of the course material. Lori has been teaching this for quite a while I believe; she is a good professor and many kin students like her, and many do seem to enjoy this course. If you pay attention and do not skip classes, you will definitely get A grades in this course :). 

 

I hope my views helped you to build some plans to take the KINE program at dal ! I honestly love my program and many teachers feel super passionate about what they do! they support us a lot (physically and mentally). Wish you the best in the journey to Nova Scotia!