Western Medical Science Vs York Biomedical Science

[Olle]

If you are at a dorm, it takes 10min (if you are a fast walker) to reach your class (it is a big big campus). And 10min back (if you do not stay at the library like a zombi. If you do, you'll save 20min per day)...10min there, 10min back. eat. 10min there, 10min back. eat. shower. WHEN DO YOU STUDY?

 

Tell that to a student who attends UBC - Vancouver Campus

[PremedToronto]

Tell that to a student who attends UBC - Vancouver Campus

[drstrange]

The guy who suggests that Western is significantly difficult is just realizing how easy high school was.

Amen.

[navr]

Hello everyone, 

 

I am recent graduate of Biomedical Sciences (BMSc). After reading through the thread, I wanted to contribute my thoughts and experiences on Biomedical Sciences program offered at University of Western Ontario or Western University. After all, it was the only undergrad I finished, making it the best and the worst undergrad of my life.

 

First, I will disclose some personal information. Although I am not gifted, I did attend one of the top high schools in Canada thanks to my better-than-average ability to memorize information quickly and regurgitate in time for exams, at least most of the time. Because of my laziness, I did not participate in Scholars program (although one of my best friends did so I can illuminate on that subject a bit if needed). I also attended Western University with the intent of pursuing BMSc and Ivey dual degree. Owing to my dislike for business after finishing pre-Ivey course, I concentrated my efforts on BMSc. By luck, I had the opportunity to participate in Western's Science Internship Program. Eventually I had graduated in Honors Specialization in Immunology and Microbiology.

 

I will try to organize my post by Year and classes I attended. Hopefully that will be helpful in telling my journey through BMSc at Western.

 

Year 1

 

Like most 1st year undergrads, I lived in residence - Saugeen-Maitland. It is situated right on campus, meaning I could sleep until 5 minutes before class and not cook for myself. Luckily, I was blessed with my floormates who will become my family, a blessing some of my other friends did not receive.

 

As for the courses, I took all the Science prerequisites plus that one psychology course many take as the "bird" course. As someone mentioned earlier, universities in general try to ease people into university life. For example, as someone earlier mentioned, many of the 1st year science courses have freebies such as 10% mark for attendance, 20-30% mark for labs. Why are they freebies? Well, for attendance, you only had to show up to class, labs or seminars led by a TA. Yes, you get free marks for showing up. First year labs, at least when I was a 1st year, the labs were literal fill in the blanks. Show up, follow instructions and fill in the blanks and hand it in - no crazy reports to be written. The rest of the mark was divvied up into usually 2 midterm exams and 1 final. Many of them were not even cumulative - how generous.

 

Not only do they try to ease you in giving out easy marks, with plenty of student support available, all you need is to have the courage to visit and talk to your councilor.

Stressed out? Overwhelmed? Defer your exam/paper. Easy. Well, maybe not that easy.

 

Now onto the courses. This is what I took in 1st year:

 

Bio 1001A  

Bio 1002B

Calculus 1000A

Calc 1301B

Chem 1100A

Chem 1200B

Physics 1028A

Phys 1029B

Psychol 1000

 

Other than physics, the rest were VERY FAIR courses. Not only that, but the university made sure to have the best TEACHERS (notice I said teachers, not PROFESSORS) lined up in said courses. You are taught what you need to know for the exam in a clear, straightforward manner. Of course, this did not mean you could pass with flying colors. You HAVE TO PUT IN THE EFFORT.

Everyone has a different method to study. This 1st year of university is the time for you to find out HOW and HOW MUCH you need to invest to do well. Still struggling? That's okay, there are support programs to help you guide you along, you just need to have the courage to attend them, there's no shame in needing help.

 

As for physics, yes ZINKE physics. He tends to go off tangent and talk forever about this and that in his dutch or whatever accent. Plus he had weekly quizzes but they are online. Still, you can only blame the professor only so much. If you put in the time and effort, including visiting him to ask questions, you will succeed. The time is ripe for you to grow as a student and an individual. No longer can you blame the teachers, professors, school or anything with so much support provided, but yourself.

 

At the end of the 1st year, you confirm your decision to continue on to BMSc. If you invest your time and effort by diligently studying, you can be accepted. If not, maybe this side wasn't suited as much as you thought it was. You can always talk to the councilor and find the right program for you. This is not the end of the world.

 

Year 2

 

Now, I've moved out of residence, for better or worse. Living with two floormates who have become very close friends of mine. Cooking for myself and cleaning became an issue.

 

Familiar faces in the courses but the numbers have dwindled. People need to realize universities are not meant for everyone nor for people not willing to change. After all, you need to realize you are investing in yourself - your future. If you don't, well, no matter how much you blame others, the sun will rise tomorrow with or without you.

 

Courses

 

Biochem 2280A

Bio 2290F

Bio 2382B

Bio 2486A

Bio 2581B

Business 2257 - "Pre-Ivey"

Chem 2213A

Chem 2223B

Stats 2244B

 

All straightforward. Chem 2213 and 2223 are organic chemistry. If you took Orgo in high school and you thought that was hard or interesting, well this will fuck you up. If you really like it, then maybe you are THAT guy/girl. =)

Anyway, Orgo was and still is the first mountain you learn to scale. This is where you learn you need to sit the fuck down and study. If you don't, then kiss your pre-med goodbye. You've been warned.

Oh and, less TEACHERS and more PROFESSORS teaching the courses. The two are just as smart as the other and both do research. Except the latter and their ability to teach leaves a lot to be desired. Still, they are always welcoming during their office hours for questions and clarification. Most of the time, they are willing to go the extra mile to make sure you leave satisfied! Also the TAs are always leading seminars or whatever. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE OFFICE HOURS. TAKE EVERYTHING YOU ARE OWED!!!

 

Oh, and labs are not freebies anymore. Oh and there aren't as many freebies, I think the only freebie I remember was attending seminars for like 5% or something. Oh and now you are lucky to get 2 midterms. Usually 1 midterm and (usually but not always) cumulative final. Except cell bio. That shit is easy AF.

 

Year 3

 

Further pruning. Still familiar faces here and there. Now you are in your selected module, if you want to pursue specialization honors you gotta give it all. Well, you should be giving it all by now or learned you should. After all, everyone in that room has the same thing in mind - med school.

So by some unwanted divine guidance I ended up in Immunology and Microbiology. I very much enjoy immunology (pretty much a bastard child of biochem and cell bio applied to immune system) but micro, not so much. If only you could take Immuno only. Well I hear Toronto has a good Immuno degree. Too bad.

 

Courses

 

Biochem 3381A

Classics 2300

Medbio 3503G

Microbiology Immunology courses x 4

Physiol 3120

Science 3391 - Science internship program

 

By the way, your module doesn't really START until 3rd year. So despite whatever other people tell you, 1st and 2nd year BMSc, everyone is pretty much on the same boat - getting prereqs done for their modules and finishing requisites for med school.

This is when your lab courses are teaching you to write professional, articles. Publishing style. Ya, writing up lab in publication format is the insidious killer of your free-time and grade so good luck.

Now, you are taking your module and faculty-related courses. You get to mingle and meet all your professors. Lovely folk. I advise you to talk to them, show some initiative. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT DOORS IT WILL OPEN.

I highly recommend Classics for bird course. Very enjoyable. Learn tons of stuff about Ancient Olympics and Ancients Greeks and their love of olive oil. Easy marks also

.

Oh ya, 3rd year shit hits the fan. It's solid shit tho, so it doesn't get too messy. And by this time you should know how to clean up after yourself.

 

Now, this is when I got tricked into taking Science 3391 to take part in Western Science Internship program by my best friend. Easy course, you don't really do anything other than attend a session or two here and there on how to do interviews and write up a proper resume.

 

Pretty much certain internship positions are reserved for Western students or university students only. Through this program you have a very strong university support and opportunity to get a full time job for a year or two depending on the contract. You work as soon as you finish 3rd year, then come back for 4th year to finish your degree. I highly recommend, since it builds up your rapport, polishes your social skills and exposes you to so many references and stories to tell in your Med MMI / interviews.

By the way, those personalized experiences and stories are what make you stand out from robotic canned responses in MMI/interviews.

 

Year 4

 

Finished working full time, now I know what being a cog in the machine feels like. Yes that's what's waiting for us out there so enjoy High school and Undergrad while you can. Oh and you are responsible for contacting and being matched to professor and his/her project for your 4th year Honors Spec research Project. It's intensely competitive to get good project because that will make you hate life less. And you will learn to laugh (and cry) at all those Masters / PhD candidate memes and cartoons on the internet.

 

Of course, you don't have to do honors spec. Just Spec or general BMSc is good too. After all, med schools don't care at all about what degree you have under your belt. Well, maybe Schulich does a bit I don't know.

 

Courses

 

Biochem 3386B

English 1022E - Full Year english course advanced by David Bentley - LOVELY COURSE

Medbio 3501F

4th year MicroImm courses x 4

Music 1122b - my one bird course... why did I take full year english again? and advanced at that? I do not know. Oh right you need to to apply to med schools in other parts of Canada!

 

So 4th year. Along with Full year research project... Did I mention the tears and 20+ hours of lab time spent on procedures you are gonna mess up and you know you will and you will have to "optimize" it. Did i say 20? I meant more like 30+ haha just kidding.

Oh and this is on top of 2 seminar presentations by you and 1 full publication format and quality write up that will be 20+ pages. hahaha. Totally worth it tho. You get to build so much relationships and they are a gift that just keeps giving. BUT THAT DEPENDS ON YOU!

 

4th Year courses are like crap hitting the fan, except it's not solid. It's more like diarrhea poop so it's gonna make a big mess. But you should be a pro at it by now. By the way, it gets worse in med school. ;^)

 

You should have taken MCAT by now, and October finishing up your med school applications on top of school. Very busy busy but very close.

 

All this stress and work is second nature by now and you should appreciate how much you have grown as a person and a scholar.

 

Some courses are worse than others, but overall, Western has given me so much to learn, so many opportunities to meet professors and share our views. You can build lifelong friendships and rapport that will make you shine like a gem in your med application.

 

Ultimately, it does not really matter what university you go to. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, depends on you and how much you are willing to explore and build yourself to be appealing to the med acceptance board or whatever. And Western and BMSc gives you more than enough to accomplish that.

 

I don't know...it seems only phantoms respond so far (think phantom as something positive, a sort of genius compared to 450 ordinary folks who will abandon the BMSc bandwagon, either in the 1st or 2nd year, my littleness included).

 

For example, my highest mark in the 1st semester 1st attempt was - physics. Physics and Biologies I did. What killed me were calc 1000 (I needed bare 2% to pass, I do not know what freebies you all are talking about. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH ON WESTERN MEDSCI. NONE. ZERO. THEY NEED TO DESTROY 300 SOULS IN THE 1ST YEAR ALONE. HALO? I mean 2% between being scientist and flipping burgers till the end of my life?!) and Chemistry 1301. If I had got these f. 2%, I would now be scientist. I was studying f. psychology, which a seller in the bookstore said she got easy 95%, and I believed her. PSYCHOLOGY IS F. HARD. IT IS A THICK THICK BOOK AND YOU HAVE TO KNOW EVERY SINGLE DETAIL. WHEN, WHEN WILL YOU FIND TIME TO READ F. PSYCHOLOGY?!

 

9 TO 1 CLASSES

THEN GO EAT. OR GO TO DORM, YOU JUST LOST 30MIN

 

THEN 4 TO 7 AGAIN CLASSES, LABS. IT IS CONSTANT.

 

YOU COME TO THE DORM AT 9 AND YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR NAME. YOU TAKE SHOWER, AND YOU STILL DON'T KNOW YOUR NAME.

 

YOU MISS TO SUBMIT F. BIO, YOU GET 0 OUT OF F. 10. HEY?! ZERO OUT OF 10. THAT'S IT. NO MISTAKES ALLOWED.

 

THE DAY PASSED. YOU WANTED TO STUDY, BUT THERE WAS SIMPLY NO F. TIME. NO F. TIME.

 

 

These phantoms, like this poster, THEY ARE VERY VERY RARE birds. Did I ever say that there are no phantoms at western medsci? I did not. There are phantoms. There is 50 phantoms and maybe 5 super phantoms, and that's it. 700 applicants and bare 50 phantoms.

 

100s and 100s of ordinary folks failed, either in 1st or in 2nd year. And they all came to western medsci and nothing else (I mean, after all, you can study f. biology on the f. ryerson, can you not? you do not need to come to western to study biology. ALL that you need for biology is a f. nice memory. and that is what 100s of those medsci original applicants end up doing, f. biology. You see, in biology there is no f. complexities of Chem 1301 and 1302, nor there are zillions and zillions of Calc 1000 tricks of the trade (again, I only need 2 f. percents to pass calc 1000. But no, no free luch at western. FORGET FREEBIES. THERE IS NO SUCH THING!!

 

Which brings me to my previous conclusion, as nothing in the reasoning changed since than, an that is : THIS IS A DAMN HARD PROGRAM. APPLICANT BEWARE. NOBODY WHO FAILED CAME HERE SO FAR. THEY ARE ALL DESTROYED AND WENT FOR THE GREENER PASTURES. ONLY I CAME, BURGER FLIPPER. There is no medium ground at western: either you are a phantom AND ALL DOORS ARE OPENED FOR YOU. or you are a burger flipper, a pizza delivery guy. The difficulty is set carefully at 60%. 60 percent. Why not 70??? Why not 80?? BECAUSE THEY DO NOT WANT THESE IN-THE-MIDDLE-ORDINARY FOLKS. IF YOU ARE NOT A PHANTOM, THEY WANT YOU OUT OUT OUT OF NOT ONLY MEDSCI BUT OUT OF WESTERN. GO FLIP BURGERS, DELIVER PIZZA.

 

In my opinion, phantoms should be those with 80 or more first year. Of course, the level of difficulty would be adjusted so that reasonable number of people pass over 80. Which would correspondingly mean that a nice chunk of people would get 60, 55 and so on (instead of flipping burgers). But because each year there are 1000s of applicants (wait to see what happens in 3 years time), they adjusted the difficulty at 60%. Statistically, 9% less than an average phantom, and you are out of medsci, and if you are easily upset, out of western as well (they piss you so well, that if you repeat a course, you gonna get much lower grade than on your 1st attempt, even if you only study that f. course the whole semester and originally you took all five major ones!

[navr]

Amen.

In Gr 12, I scored 98% in physics regularly during the year, ending up with 90%. same with bio and chem. And in calculus, I had 92%. I also took probability 87%, advanced functions 90 etc. my gpa was around 91%.

 

Other 90% guys went down 20% at the university. I went down 50%?! I just didn't find time, during the day, to study. I believe that those 50 phantoms incorporated their knowledge while attending classes, as there is no other explanation.

[thethirdlaw]

In Gr 12, I scored 98% in physics regularly during the year, ending up with 90%. same with bio and chem. And in calculus, I had 92%. I also took probability 87%, advanced functions 90 etc. my gpa was around 91%.

 

Other 90% guys went down 20% at the university. I went down 50%?! I just didn't find time, during the day, to study. I believe that those 50 phantoms incorporated their knowledge while attending classes, as there is no other explanation.

 

I'm sorry, but you went to a high school with rampant grade inflation. And don't even tell me you went to a high ranked Nobel winning alumni high school again (UTS right?) because I went to a shitty public high school and averaged >90% across 4 years at Western.

 

You just didn't adjust properly. That is your fault and not the programs. I sincerely hope you fix your approach, because if you need 9 hours of sleep per/day (10 hrs/day on weekends? what? why?) to be a functional human being and can't remember to do an online biology quiz, medicine isn't for you. Because the sheer amount of information you have to inhale and obligations/responsibilities you have to juggle becomes a lot more overwhelming on the other side of this little rat race.

 

Again, to prospective grade 12 students, the BMSc program is fantastic, with great professors that really care about teaching and researchers willing to take on undergrads in their labs and a Western community spirit/feel that is unrivaled anywhere else. I (and many many many of my friends) have found success along the BMSc to medicine route.

[thethirdlaw]

In Gr 12, I scored 98% in physics regularly during the year, ending up with 90%. same with bio and chem. And in calculus, I had 92%. I also took probability 87%, advanced functions 90 etc. my gpa was around 91%.

 

Other 90% guys went down 20% at the university. I went down 50%?! I just didn't find time, during the day, to study. I believe that those 50 phantoms incorporated their knowledge while attending classes, as there is no other explanation.

 

You didn't find time because you weren't efficient with it.

[ChooseYourPlan]

Dear Navr,

 

Remember the part I wrote in my post - Universities are not for everyone. I also mentioned Medsci is not for everyone.

 

You should ask yourself, is University education the right choice for me?

 

Then you should ask yourself is Medsci program right for me?

 

You are right, there are hundreds of others before you who did not proceed into upper years of MedSci program. Those who didn't asked, themselves the above two questions and many, but not all, guided by councilors, altered their path.

 

You are also right, there is no such thing as "1st year and 2nd year Medsci." However, the mandatory courses you must take in first two years create the foundations necessary for other general science degrees. In fact, the 1st and 2nd year "Medsci" courses are the same courses you had to take at Western to fulfill your requirements to apply at most Canadian and US medical schools. As far as I am aware, the difficulties of these pre-med courses are comparable across different Canadian Universities. If you cannot do well at UWO pre-med courses, do you honestly believe you will do much better at other Universities?

 

For those who are deciding which University to attend, honestly the right question you should ask yourself is: What do I want from this Univeristy, and what can the University offer me? You, as a prospective student, have to weigh the pros and cons of available research opportunities, internship opportunities, university culture, location and city and etc. different Universities offer you.

 

Here's the kicker for you dear Navr - if you can't handle the challenging, but exponentially rewarding, Medsci program offered at UWO, do you believe you have what it takes to become a medical doctor?

[thethirdlaw]

I disagree. As the matter of fact, I think you work for the Western University, you are an insider. Which makes sense, as after all, UWO is a business enterprise and wants to attract dollars. I have nothing against that, but in doing so, Western should not destroy an average guy and that is majority of us. 400 of us, average guys, are eliminated in the first 2 yrs at Western. That is 4 followed by TWO zeros. I am the ONLY one from that HUGE group, who found time to inform others about DANGERS of applying to Western medsci (whether fantastic or not fantastic, it is irrelevant for this discussion).

 

Hello persecution complex. I hate to say this, but to me, you have clearly and abundantly demonstrated you do not have the mettle to thrive in the (sometimes) pressure cooker that is medical school. I wish you luck in your future endeavours, and honestly hope a change in attitude will offer you success someday.

 

I think it's about time to ban this troll. Posts like these actually resonate with highly motivated high school students, fear-mongering shouldn't be tolerated here...