byron.g Posted September 4, 2011 Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 Hey, I know this has been brought up a couple of times already for thesis courses but I'm not sure about my courses. This year, I took two lab courses at UWO as part of my degree. One was a "thesis" based course, a semester long course where we had animal training with rats (postmortem, injection techniques, ultrasound, anaesthesia, sacrificing and tissue sampling) and were exposed to multiple laboratory techniques such as RNA isolation and PCR, protein isolation and western blot, tissue sectioning, staining, and microscopic analysis. At the end of the course, we wrote a 20 page paper on our findings and experiment. Another course was an elective course where we had a class as well as a laboratory section. In the lab section we learned proper handling techniques for mice including injection techniques and anaesthetized the animals, performed a quick surgery where we learned suture techniques. Oh ya, in both courses we performed intracardiac blood collections, we also performed a saphenous vein collection on the rat. So all in all, i think this constitutes valid research experience. I was exposed to multiple techniques, animal training in handling, anaesthesia and euthanasia. Is this sort of stuff valid to put in for research experience. I don't want to sound like I'm padding my ABS but i do think that this constitutes research experience. I learned more in these courses than I did when I worked in a lab. I've put working in the lab on my resume so why not these courses? And finally, if it is legit to put this on my sketch, how would you go by labelling it. "Fourth Year Thesis Course"? or "Fourth Year Research Courses"? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehumanmacbook Posted September 4, 2011 Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 OMSAS, I think states that you can't put these courses down... But people put thesis work down - I know this is common. So maybe spin it in another context? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byron.g Posted September 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 Ya that was what I was afraid of. I really don't understand why though. Lots of people will volunteer in a lab where they make solutions and clean glassware and put that as research experience. These courses taught me quite a lot about research, the methodology, etc. Why should I not be able to highlight that in my sketch? Anyways, how would you go by spinning it in another context? I'm not sure how i'd go by doing that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehumanmacbook Posted September 4, 2011 Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 If you got any pubs/posters/conference out of it and it wasn't a requirement of the course, then you can link it through as research towards a pub... But if you didn't...adcom will sort of see it is as filler, since they more or less say that you can't put research courses down (but you can put research PRODUCTS down...pubs, posters, etc). f_d might have more suggestions, but that's how I would do things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
byron.g Posted September 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 Alright, thanks for the help. I guess i'll give it a miss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehumanmacbook Posted September 4, 2011 Report Share Posted September 4, 2011 ^sorry I couldn't be of more help, bud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.O.Student. Posted September 25, 2011 Report Share Posted September 25, 2011 I'm a bit in the same boat as well in terms of a research experience. I'm unsure whether it would be alright to put under the research category but I'm leaning towards that it would be and would like some clarification. So during my last semester of my dietetics degree, I do 16 weeks of internship (which has a course number and everything and is worth 14 credits) which includes a community nutrition rotation. Instead, I opted to get involved in an overseas children's health and nutrition research project for 7 weeks. My supervisor was the principal investigator and already had a team and study underway. Most of my responsibilities pertained to going to primary schools and gathering data from the children (dietary recalls, measuring anthropometrics, physical activity surveys) and then analyzing the data with statistics. So while it wasn't an honours project, it is a study that I assisted and will eventually get published. The only catch is the part in OMSAS that says "Please note that projects done as part of a university course do not qualify as research". I feel that OMSAS indicates this for course work that teaches research techniques rather than an actual research project but I'm still hesitant.. Yay or nay? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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