Third Year PHPY Courses

[Nocturnes]

Hello everyone,

 

Long time viewer, first time poster. I am a student going into my third year of undergrad, and was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of how third year PHPY courses are like. Specifically, I would like some information regarding PHPY 303 and 308. I concluded the previous year with a 90+ average, and I hope my future years are just as fruitful. Any information would be very much appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Nocturnes

[wannabdoctor]

Hey Thanks for asking! I would like to know too! 

I heard from a friend that from the PHPY classes 304 and 305  are the hardest but it is still possible to get above a 90 in those despite the difficulty, so I am guessing the 303 shouldn't be too bad. That being said, I myself am entering 3rd year, so I can't tell you for sure. 

308 should be fine too from what I heard, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

See ya in class next term!

[Turk34]

I took PHPY 303 this last term.  PHPY 303 was a rather difficult course me.  I usually don't really struggle in classes but for some reason this one just hit me hard.  However, I am not saying that to scare you just to let you know what happens if you don't take it seriously lol.  I usually do pretty good in classes (high 80's, low 90's) so i got too comfortable and skipped some classes and waited till the end to study.  One of the profs had a bunch of text on his slides which made it more difficult and more boring to study as I already didn't really enjoy the content.  

If you study hard, review your notes after class, go to all classes and not cram you should have no problem getting 80's or 90's in that class.  Some of the test questions are difficult, but doable.

(also the prof gave us a few questions word for word that were on the midterm.  So that's free marks right there!)

Good luck!  

[Nocturnes]

Hello everyone,

 

Thank you for your responses! I feel pretty good about the coming year, and I hope to study alongside you guys. Although, I have one last question pertaining to the relative difficulty of a course. Is BMSC 240 really as difficult as everyone says it is? One of my friends said the highest mark in his class was an 89%, which is ridiculously low for the highest mark. Wouldn’t that also offset anyone’s intention of getting a perfect “4.0” after the OMSAS grade conversions for anyone wishing to apply OOP? According to the OMSAS scale, 89% = 3.9. This is the last of the “BMSC” courses that I need to take and was a little hesitant about taking it the previous semester. 

 

Thanks for reading this and I hope to see you all next year!

[Turk34]

Hey, It has been a couple years since I took BMSC 240 but I do remember that it was for sure the hardest of the BMSCs.  I think I came out with an 83-84, which if you convert with OMSAS scale is a 3.7.  This sounds worse than it is.  From what I hear and from the people I talked to in my lab ( a lot of them), nobody gets perfect grades in the labs.  I began getting 70's in lab (yikes) but then towards the end I was getting high 80's low 90's.  This is expected because you really learn how to write lab reports.  As for the class, the lecture notes were pretty easy but if I recall you had to apply a lot of the knowledge. Questions like "what do you expect to see if...".  There were some questions where I had absolutely no idea of where to find the information.  Even looking through all my notes after the exams there were no traces of info on some of those question and I guess that was unavoidable. You don't really have to put an insane amount of time into the class.  What brings your grade down (or mine anyway) is the lab and those random questions.  If you have any concerns just talk with the prof (should be the same one) he is super cool and approachable.  PM me I might have some things that you may be interested in.  Good luck!

[broclivity44]

On 6/4/2018 at 9:35 PM, Nocturnes said:

Hello everyone,

 

Thank you for your responses! I feel pretty good about the coming year, and I hope to study alongside you guys. Although, I have one last question pertaining to the relative difficulty of a course. Is BMSC 240 really as difficult as everyone says it is? One of my friends said the highest mark in his class was an 89%, which is ridiculously low for the highest mark. Wouldn’t that also offset anyone’s intention of getting a perfect “4.0” after the OMSAS grade conversions for anyone wishing to apply OOP? According to the OMSAS scale, 89% = 3.9. This is the last of the “BMSC” courses that I need to take and was a little hesitant about taking it the previous semester. 

 

Thanks for reading this and I hope to see you all next year!

Hey nocturnes,

As a person from Ontario, I wouldnt be too worried about getting a perfect raw 4.0. This is because other than Mcmaster, all schools either drop your lowest grades (Uoft), take the best of 2 years (Queens and Western) or give greater weight to later years (Ottawa). I know plenty of people who have gotten ontario interviews without perfect 4.0s. If you are sitting on a 4.0 after 2 years, you have a great shot at getting both UofT and Ottawa interviews. PM me if you have more questions about Ontario schools but getting a single 3.9 is not even close to a bad thing!

[Nocturnes]

On 6/7/2018 at 5:40 PM, broclivity44 said:

Hey nocturnes,

As a person from Ontario, I wouldnt be too worried about getting a perfect raw 4.0. This is because other than Mcmaster, all schools either drop your lowest grades (Uoft), take the best of 2 years (Queens and Western) or give greater weight to later years (Ottawa). I know plenty of people who have gotten ontario interviews without perfect 4.0s. If you are sitting on a 4.0 after 2 years, you have a great shot at getting both UofT and Ottawa interviews. PM me if you have more questions about Ontario schools but getting a single 3.9 is not even close to a bad thing!

 

On 6/7/2018 at 2:24 PM, Turk34 said:

Hey, It has been a couple years since I took BMSC 240 but I do remember that it was for sure the hardest of the BMSCs.  I think I came out with an 83-84, which if you convert with OMSAS scale is a 3.7.  This sounds worse than it is.  From what I hear and from the people I talked to in my lab ( a lot of them), nobody gets perfect grades in the labs.  I began getting 70's in lab (yikes) but then towards the end I was getting high 80's low 90's.  This is expected because you really learn how to write lab reports.  As for the class, the lecture notes were pretty easy but if I recall you had to apply a lot of the knowledge. Questions like "what do you expect to see if...".  There were some questions where I had absolutely no idea of where to find the information.  Even looking through all my notes after the exams there were no traces of info on some of those question and I guess that was unavoidable. You don't really have to put an insane amount of time into the class.  What brings your grade down (or mine anyway) is the lab and those random questions.  If you have any concerns just talk with the prof (should be the same one) he is super cool and approachable.  PM me I might have some things that you may be interested in.  Good luck!

Hello again,

Thank you for the responses. Although, I’m not particularly frightful of getting a single 3.9. Haha. I was just curious as to how difficult some of these courses were. Also, are fourth year courses generally the easiest? I’ve heard many people say that since the class sizes are small, there is more student-professor interaction, thus people end up doing better. Furthermore, are professors a bit more lenient in giving people A’s / 90’s / 4.0’s? I remember hearing one of my professors from the UofC say that he was told, by the department, to put 30% of the students in the A- to A+ range in first year, but more fourth year students received those stellar grades (40-50% from what I recall). Is this largely because of the small class sizes, or do you guys feel professors generally want more of their students to succeed in their academic endeavours in upper years? For anyone who has done fourth year courses in PHPY, how were 403, 404, and 405? These course really piqued my interest, and I wanted to have a little insight of what to expect early. Also, the syllabi for 403 and 405 don’t seem to be available online.

Once again, I appreciate all the feedback!