Athabasca University Inquiry: Need help Please

[t0ny]

Hey everyone so I have a question regarding Athabasca courses.

 

I am currently doing a fifth year. I am currently signed up for 3 upper year courses in my biochemistry department and was looking to take 2 courses at Athabasca that I shall decide in the next few days. My inquiries lie actually in how I go about these counting in my cGPA calculation for med school.

 

1) To get my grades from the AU courses to count in med school apps, do I need to get the credits transferred to my current university?

 

2) I currently signed up as a independent student just taking courses at AU and not enrolled myself in a program, is this the right course of action?

 

3) I was looking at taking physiology or anatomy with an English class. Any recommendations on which ones to take?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated, Thank you in advance.

[t0ny]

Please any help would be fantastic... I need to sign up to the classes by the 10th.

 

Thank you in advance

[jojoluvsu2]

Are you going to need these Athabasca courses as part of your degree? If that is the case you need to get permission from your base university and transfer them to your transcript. If they'd are just extra courses to complete a full semester you don't need to transfer them, you just enter them in OMSAS and they'll see that they're part of the same semester. Either way you'll submit transcripts from both schools. And you don't need to be part of a degree for those Athabasca courses.

 

I never took anatomy or physiology. I did the intro English, hated it. Unless you really like English or are doing it to fulfill prereqs don't do it hahaha.

 

Health and healing was really interesting and easy, social statistics if you like stats (super easy, only a few basic calculations and more about how to interpret stats). PM if you want a few more suggestions.

[t0ny]

Thanks I appreciate it. Anymore advice would be great

[PreMedAK]

Thanks I appreciate it. Anymore advice would be great

 

Nope, you only need a LOP if you want those 3 credits to go for your total currently, or if its a pre-req that you need at your current university. If they are just for Med schools, ill save the $15 of the LOP because medical schools require all transcripts from every institution you have attended.

[Borborygmi]

As others of have said, you don't need an LOP if you don't wish the courses from AU to be counted as transfer credit at your full-time institution.

 

A word of warning with AU courses, some medical schools (ie: UofC) want to see that you have taken the courses in a normal academic term (Sept - Dec, Jan - Apr) and completed the courses in those time frames in order to be calculated in your full-time semester. So, although you get 6 months to complete AU courses (plus 2 month course extensions if necessary), make sure to complete them in the 4 month, normal academic semester if you want them included as courses that count toward a full-time course load.

 

My experience at AU has been quite good. I took two English courses this summer (ENG 255 and ENG 211). I have also taken both oChems and a psychopharmacology course at AU. I found the ENG 255 assignments to be very easy and required minimal reading. This will be particularly true if your writing is already strong. You have 6 assignments in ENG255 plus a final exam. As for ENG211, the course is excellent and the assigned literature is interesting. However, the amount of material you have to cover is VERY heavy. Three novels, a novella, ~8-10 essays, and ~10 short stories. All of the works require in-depth literary analysis and the essays you write can be tedious as a result. You have three essays and a final exam. The grading is fair and if you listen to the feedback on your writing, you'll do very well. For both ENG255 and ENG211 the course materials (this goes for all AU courses, imo) are the best of any university I have ever attended.

 

I haven't taken any bio courses at AU and can't recommend any of them as a result. Be wary when choosing science classes that many have labs. Unless it's a high enrollment course (ie: organic chem), then be aware that many of the labs require you to fly out to Alberta to complete the necessary work and you should book these early because they can fill up.

 

If you aren't worried about cost, I highly recommend AU courses. My experience with the courses I've taken at AU has been really excellent and I wish my own school was as thorough in providing feedback, as fair in grading, and had material even remotely as strong as what AU gives to its students.

 

Hope that helped. Good luck!

[medhopeful64]

to the OP - just a note that if even if you don't need the courses for your degree (just need it to fulfill med requirements), if you do take them on LOP you can have them be covered under OSAP (if courses done at another uni are not for the degree, they do not qualify for OSAP aid). Just a heads up if that is relevant to you.

[Hoganhero]

I do suggest, however, that if you get Francis Aleba as a tutor that you either request a transfer to another tutor or really pay very close attention to submitting assignments early and attending to your use of grammar. My marks were in the A-A+ range with him as a tutor, but it was a struggle. The grades that were returned seemed unpredictable and he took a very, very long time to mark assignments (6-8 weeks sometimes). You have 6 assignments in ENG255 plus a final exam.

 

On the contrary, I would recommend Francis Aleba as a tutor. Likewise, I took english 255 this summer, and had him as a tutor. I found his comments to be extremely insightful, and I have drastically improved my writing as a result.