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Are you a Yorkie Premed? (York Premed Discussion)


charmer08

Are you a Yorkie?  

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Hey!  this may be off tangent but the psyc program at york has this weird limit on how many psychology courses I can take. It works out that I will need 9 upper year non-psyc credits to graduate. I have looked into some kine courses & I know a few that are taking some English courses, but I wanted to know if anyone here had this issue and can recommend any interesting course or share what courses they took? My problem is the prerequisites, I dont have much room nor do I want to take many first year classes... 

 

Thanks! 

I took kine 2011 (phys I) and 4020 (nutrition). Both are ridiculous and kinda useless courses but if you're into mind numbing memorization they're easy A+s. 4020 is a bit weird with the final exam though, the questions are so vague and quite frankly dumb that it's hard to get everything right but the midterm is easy and the assignments *worth 25%* pretty much everyone gets 100% on. 

Also kine profs apparently don't really care about prereq's as much as you'd think. If you personally ask a prof to fill out the waiver form you'll be able to get into the class. 

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I took kine 2011 (phys I) and 4020 (nutrition). Both are ridiculous and kinda useless courses but if you're into mind numbing memorization they're easy A+s. 4020 is a bit weird with the final exam though, the questions are so vague and quite frankly dumb that it's hard to get everything right but the midterm is easy and the assignments *worth 25%* pretty much everyone gets 100% on. 

Also kine profs apparently don't really care about prereq's as much as you'd think. If you personally ask a prof to fill out the waiver form you'll be able to get into the class. 

 

ilayh

 

I personally loved kine courses and thought Phys and Nutrition were especially relevant to medicine. We actually use the same phys textbook in kine as some medical schools.

 

Edit: Actually, Phys 1 was shit but I thought Phys 2 (3012) was very good and ESPECIALLY helpful for MCAT bio. See if you can get into Phys 2 without Phys 1. Exercise Phys (4010?) is also really good and the Prof (Hood) is incredible. He holds a tier 1 canada research chair. Not sure if you'll be able to get in without prereqs though. Worth a shot.

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I don't understand how anyone could suggest taking nutrition. I'm going to be the good person here and say absolutely do not do it. There's memorization then there's nutrition. That class was brutal as hell. Even after making a huge 4paged vitamin chart to help me study, I ended up lucking out and finding a few past midterms that managed to get me my A.

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Any easy third year psych classes that I can take with only Psych 1010 as a prereq?

 

The rest of my year next year will probably be the upper year biochem classes, so I'd like a couple of interesting electives.

Yeah, abnormal is an option (& interesting!), so is cognition.

Take abnormal with Joel Goldberg.

 

Health psych I think you can also take without any other prereqs.

 

Neural basis of behaviour is interesting, but more work, and if you're in bio you can probably get permission to take it without the 2nd year prereq (I did it without the prereq and it was totally fine).

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ilayh

 

I personally loved kine courses and thought Phys and Nutrition were especially relevant to medicine. We actually use the same phys textbook in kine as some medical schools.

 

Edit: Actually, Phys 1 was shit but I thought Phys 2 (3012) was very good and ESPECIALLY helpful for MCAT bio. See if you can get into Phys 2 without Phys 1. Exercise Phys (4010?) is also really good and the Prof (Hood) is incredible. He holds a tier 1 canada research chair. Not sure if you'll be able to get in without prereqs though. Worth a shot.

 I actually really enjoyed Phys 2 and nutrition, thought they were interesting and helpful! A+'s are doable in both (well, I had Roger Kelton and Adegoke for nutrition and Tara Haas and Michael Connor for phys 2 for what its worth)

 

Anatomy courses with Nikki Richardson is also good, she explains things really well

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Did you take process of evolution, I think its BIOL 3200? Prereq for Genomics.

No I haven't taken it. People that took it said it was a lot of history and very little evolution. And why in the world is that a prereq for genomics...

Also if amro's teaching genomics I'm sure you can take it without the prereq if you just ask him

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No I haven't taken it. People that took it said it was a lot of history and very little evolution. And why in the world is that a prereq for genomics...

Also if amro's teaching genomics I'm sure you can take it without the prereq if you just ask him

 

I was hoping 3200 would be a birdish course. I also need to decide if I'm going to take the 3rd year version of biol2070. I wasn't too far off an A+ in 2070, but it was a lot of work.

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I thought evolutionary psych was hella cool. Explains a lot of things

This. One of the most interesting courses I've taken. Irwin Silverman is very knowledgable And he's cited extensively in the evo book. Tests are fair, but you need to know the research findings in the text and lecture material that he teaches.

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Yeah, abnormal is an option (& interesting!), so is cognition.

Take abnormal with Joel Goldberg.

 

Health psych I think you can also take without any other prereqs.

 

Neural basis of behaviour is interesting, but more work, and if you're in bio you can probably get permission to take it without the 2nd year prereq (I did it without the prereq and it was totally fine).

Joel Goldberg is now the chair of the Department. I think it's unlikely that he'll be teaching. He's pretty busy now. It's possible, but don't be surprised if he doesn't teach this year. He didn't last year. If you want to learn in the course, take Jennifer Lewin. She's supposed to be excellent. If you want a VERY easy grade, but don't care about learning, take with Valoo. No need to show up to lectures, and her class is an easy A+. She teaches and tests right out of the textbook. One of the easiest courses I've ever taken, and I'm a Psych major.  :P

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This. One of the most interesting courses I've taken. Irwin Silverman is very knowledgable And he's cited extensively in the evo book. Tests are fair, but you need to know the research findings in the text and lecture material that he teaches.

I heard from some people who weren't Psych majors that Evolutionary Psych with Silverman was very difficult. And this is from people with high GPA's. Weird.

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It's not an easy Psyc course for sure. The MC choices are sometimes tricky too (almost every question has an above all/none of the above option). The textbook is dense too, there is a lot of material to cover. It's definitely not an easy course, but very doable with the right amount of studying. Also Silverman boosted everyone's final grade by 3%!!

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It's not an easy Psyc course for sure. The MC choices are sometimes tricky too (almost every question has an above all/none of the above option). The textbook is dense too, there is a lot of material to cover. It's definitely not an easy course, but very doable with the right amount of studying. Also Silverman boosted everyone's final grade by 3%!!

Jubis adds percentages onto final grades for everyone too. I wish she would teach upper level courses. The highest she goes is to 2000 level.

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Anyone take History of Psychology (PSYCH3125) with Harper? No Assignments, so only midterms, MC and SA. How easy is the course?

A friend of mine took it and said it was an easy A+. But I can't really trust that since it was during the strike and apparently the prof was a lot more lenient because of that.

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Hey all!

 

I am trying to select my second year courses and I am torn between choosing BIOL 2070 (Research Methods) Vs. BIOL 2010 (Plants), BIOL 2030 (Animals), and BIOL 2050 (Ecology). I am a Biology major, so BIOL 2070 is not a required course for me. I am trying to avoid taking BIOL 2070 (or perhaps taking it during next summer) after reading negative comments about its massive work load and rarely awarded A+'s. But I am also hearing negative comments for the three BIOL courses, which also have three hour lab components - so their work load won't be any lighter than BIOL 2070 I assume - and rarely awarded A+'s as well. Which option would you recommend? :)

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Plants is apparently awful, don't get it. Animals is okay. You can get an A+ in Animals for sure, but the lab component is very time consuming. Ecology is the easiest A in the world, but almost an impossible A+. The TAs will take off marks even if you write down exactly what the answer key says, and they don't really give anything up on regrades. The labs involve walking around in the woods and measuring trees, catching bugs etc. I found that there was very little prep needed for those labs, unlike the lab in Animals which required you to memorize EVERYTHING from the prior week and the upcoming week for the short lab quiz. Animals is a prereq for the upper year physiology type courses (animal phys 1 and 2). I think Animal phys 1 is a prereq for our neurobiology course (which sounds super interesting).

 

2070 is frustrating if all you care about is your grade. I probably would have gotten an A+ in the course if the strike didn't occur. It is a major time investment, about 10 hours a week of work (6 hours lab, at least 4 hours prelab-post lab stuff). Keep in mind, 2070 is a prereq for a lot of upper year courses, and the department has started becoming very strict on not letting students take courses without prereqs. Off the top of my head, you need 2070 for molec 1, molec 2, immunology, histology, virology, molecular bio of development ... the list goes on. There is no way that you don't get an A in 2070.

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I am a 2nd degree student at York. I attained a sessional GPA of 3.88 this year with a full course load to stay eligible for Western (with the 3/5 senior level courses and everything). 

The schools I see myself being competitive for are Western, Queens, Dalhousie (?), and Ottawa if I decide to do another year but mostly likely will not. This is because my first degree GPA is a poor one ~2.8, so there is no hope in raising my cGPA for other schools. 

 

EC's are pretty average -> lots of volunteering, some research, some athletics, leadership/president roles at school clubs, some random stuff here and there. 

Questions: 

 

1) I know it is not publicly released, but what wGPA should I aim for to be competitive for Queens? (obviously 4.0 is ideal , but would you say 3.9 atleast?)
2) I know Dalhousie looks at the last 2 years, but being OPP for me, would I really have any realistic shot there?
3) Would a MCAT score that meets the western cutoffs (32), be competitive for Queens and Dalhousie as well?
4) Any advice that other 2nd degree students want to pass along? 

Thanks!

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