Scott Dobson-Mitchell

What Scott Dobson-Mitchell would tell his Freshman Self

Assuming I couldn’t accidentally cause some sort of butterfly effect that would prevent me being born, I wish I could travel back in time and tell my Freshman Self a few things about university. Considering I’ve already forgotten the answers to every exam, this is what I’d tell the younger me.

1) Plan ahead. WAY ahead.

It happens to every semester. Searching through the course calendar, I find the perfect class. It sounds interesting, it fits perfectly into my schedule and it fulfills my upper-year science requirement. The prof has checks out on RateMyProfessors and the course has a high score on Bird Courses. But I don’t have one of the prerequisites! If I’d been smart enough to plan, I would have that first year zoology credit that’s mandatory for nearly everything. Instead, I’m stuck with Phytochemical Biosystems.

2) You’re richer than you think.

Or at least, you’re less broke than you think. There are plenty of ways to get money beyond student loans—scholarships, bursaries, and work study programs that not only get you some cash, but also valuable work experience. The Ontario Work Study Program is one example. If you’re receiving student loans, then you’re probably eligible. Also be sure to check out the Maclean’s Scholarship finder.

3) It’s going to get easier.

The first year is the worst year. It’s sort of like the first 20 minutes of the movie Inception, when you have no idea what the hell is going on. But if you hang in there, things will start making sense. You’ll realize that university isn’t impossibly more difficult than high school. In fact, once you’ve acclimatized, it’s easier in some ways. And it’s only gets better. Once some of those nasty prerequisites are out of the way, you can take courses that truly interest you. My interests happen to coincide with those listed on Bird Courses.

4) It’s easier to keep up than to catch up.

As a seasoned procrastinator, I can say with experience and authority that procrastination is not a good idea. Especially when you leave multiple things to the last minute. Here’s what I finally realized: there comes a point where writing an essay is less difficult than NOT writing an essay. After you’ve checked your email, looked at your Facebook notifications, watched a bunch of mindless videos on YouTube and then read some random Wikipedia articles, procrastinating actually becomes more difficult than finishing your work. A better option? Keep those pages closed.

Scott Dobson-Mitchell studies at the University of Waterloo. Follow @ScottyDobson on Twitter.

And it’s a haven for racist, sexist trolls

Facebook. Twitter. MSN. Google Plus. There’s no shortage of places for students to chat, opine, or procrastinate during finals. Yet there’s a new digital obsession spreading across Canadian campuses. It’s called OMG and it’s simple. Students submit short “Oh My Gods” about anything. Then, they’re posted to the site.

As a Waterloo student who found myself distracted by OMGUW far too often in December, I got thinking about what makes it so hard to look away. I wanted to know what makes it so enticing that it has spread from Waterloo to Guelph, Saskatchewan and Toronto, with tens of thousands of views.

Continue reading There’s a new social media obsession on campus

It’s not the size that counts, it’s how you use it.

Having trouble with a difficult calculus problem? Trying to figure out how to draw a resonance structure for your lab report? If you’re a student at the University of Toronto, chances are you’re out of luck. With labs and tutorials packed with more students than the teaching assistants can handle, getting one-on-one time is virtually impossible.

When you’re sitting in a classroom with hundreds of other students, it’s hard to have in-depth discussions about the material—you’re pretty much just showing up to take notes. That’s the whole point of tutorials and labs: filling in the gaps and supplementing the lecture material. The problem is, after a certain number of students it’s not even a tutorial anymore.

CUPE 3902 (which voted 91 per cent in favour of striking on Nov. 30) says 42 per cent of labs and tutorials at U of T have more than 50 students, more than 100 sections have over a 100 students. Additional statistics that paint the same picture: student-to-instructor ratios are terrible, and they’re getting worse.

Continue reading Are big classes really a problem?

Find out why some students are opposed

Algoma University photo by Ontario MTCU

Back in first year, I remember realizing that the hardest part of university isn’t the lab reports, the chemistry midterms, or the 1000-word essays.

It’s when they’re all due within three days of each other. Before you can even begin learning the material, you must learn how to juggle five course’s worth material that always comes due at once.

That problem could be eliminated for future students at tiny Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which is debating switching to a block plan where students would be taught one course at a time, rather than five at once.

The block plan looks like this. A semester’s worth of calculus is compressed into three and a half weeks, with classes taking three or four hours each day, followed by four or five hours of homework. After a few weeks, there’s an exam. Then students move directly to the next course.

Continue reading Canadian university considers radical change

Scott Dobson-Mitchell reviews five apps for students

Photo courtesy of Alla_G on Flickr

1) FoodBot [mobile site]

Nevermind medical diagnoses or space exploration. Artificial intelligence has found a more important calling — locating free food on campus! FoodBot combs the web for events where free food has been advertised, such as fundraisers, job fairs and council meetings. It puts them on a calendar that details quality, quantity, time commitment, and — importantly — awkwardness. Too bad it’s only available at a few schools so far.

Continue reading Want free pizza? Hazy about last night? Try these apps.

Men are attracted to obstetrics, so why not midwifery?

When Otis Kryzanauskas was four years old, he didn’t want to be an astronaut, a police officer or a firefighter.

After witnessing his younger brother’s birth at home — and cutting the cord — he decided he would one day be a midwife.

Next spring, he’ll be the first male graduate of the Bachelor of Midwifery program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

Kryzanauskas, who has participated in almost 100 births already, believes that he may be the first male midwife to graduate anywhere in Canada — ever.

Why are there so few men in this fast-growing field?

Midwives provide primary care to women and their babies during pregnancy, labour, birth and the postpartum period. According to the Canadian Women’s Health Network, midwives spend an average of 20 to 30 minutes more per appointment with their patients than other medical professionals do. That could explain why demand for midwifery services is increasing. Rare two decades ago, over the course of 2010, there were 14,000 midwife-attended births in Canada.

Continue reading Meet McMaster’s first male midwife

Entertaining (but true!) advice from a third-year student

Photo courtesy of rofltosh on Flickr

There’s still over a month of summer vacation left, but as a soon-to-be freshman, the advice is already starting. Everyone is telling you what you need to do, talking about how you’re going to ‘find yourself’ in university, and prattling on about how you need to stay on top of the readings.

So we thought we’d provide you with some anti-advice. You know, the top five things you shouldn’t do in your first year. Here are the top five:

1) DON’T: Listen to the podcasts that your professor uploads after each lecture

It’s a slippery slope. At first it’s just a study tool,  a way to reinforce everything you heard during the lecture. After all, repetition is the best way to learn, right?

But the next thing you know, your chemistry class is no longer a lecture hall with hundreds of other students three days a week at 8:30. It’s a bedroom at 2:30 in the morning the day before the exam.

2) DON’T: Bring your laptop with you to the library

Stop kidding yourself. You won’t be using that laptop to research your lab report, or to write your essay, or to flip through the PowerPoint notes from biology class. You’ll be watching this video.

It’s much better to just bring your books.

3) DON’T: Use the word “including” in your 2,000 word term paper.

Why? Because “such as” is two words, cutting the required word-count effort in half. And if your word count is still coming up short, throw a chin-stroking “perhaps” or two and an: “As evidenced by…”

4) DON’T: Sit at the back of the lecture hall

Do you remember sitting at the back of the bus on the way to a field trip? The land of spit balls and minimal teacher intervention? The back of the lecture hall is a similar territory.

But unlike the back of the bus,  you’re not dodging paper airplanes — you’re surrounded by Tetris players. And unlike the front of the lecture hall, you’re not learning about valence states and atomic structure — you’re overhearing how wasted Jake was last night.

If you actually want to hear what the professor is saying, don’t sit in the back.

5) DON’T: Utter the words, “There’s no final exam, so this course will balance out my physics and chemistry courses.”

That’s a direct challenge to the Elective Gods. Their response is usually a 5,000 word essay about the juxtaposition between modern man in a consumer-driven society and the ambitions of Macbeth.

When you write an exam, it’s over after two hours. You either get a good mark or you bomb and then vow to change your study habits. Then you do pretty much the same thing for the next exam.

And that is much easier than an essay.

New program combines undergraduate and medical school

Photo courtesy of Tulane Public Relations on Flickr

Imagine if there were a way to train doctors more efficiently, effectively, and at a lower cost, increasing the number of primary care providers while decreasing the amount of debt that students face. In other words, imagine a system that benefits patients, doctors, and the health care system.

Officials at the University of Texas (UT) believe they can do just that.

A new program pitched for 2013 will reduce the number of years that are required for students to earn a bachelor’s degree and a medical degree by spreading medical education across seven years, instead of putting most of it in a four year program that follows a BSc. The class would start with 60 freshman who are guaranteed a spot in med school if they do well in the first three years.

There may be fewer electives than a normal science degree, but there will still be some flexibility built into the program, including an entire year to “explore an area of interest” such as public health or medical research.

“Medical education, in general, takes too long, costs too much, it’s redundant, and it also doesn’t necessarily prepare people for practice in the 21st century,” Dr. Kenneth Shine, the UT’s executive vice chancellor for health affairs explained to The Austin American-Statesman. Other UT campuses are planning to try a similar model for nursing and pharmacy students.

The idea of reducing the time it takes to graduate from medical school isn’t exactly new, but it’s not very common. At least one three-year medical program can be found here in Canada. McMaster operates on an 11 months-a-year basis that allows students to qualify for the MD degree at the end of the third academic year. So do roughly 15 per cent of American schools. But the idea of combining undergraduate and graduate has so far been limited to places like Australia and Ireland. This may be a North American first.

Considering that it takes at least eight years between high school and medical residency, there’s another potential benefit to shortened programs for both patients and taxpayers. If doctors enter the workforce a year earlier and stay working a year longer, it would make life easier for the roughly 2-million Canadians who want a family doctor but can’t find one.

Unless the patient is on a train, physics doesn’t help

Train photo courtesy of kaffeeeinstein on Flickr

I forgot how much I hate physics.

If studying for the MCAT only included biology, chemistry, and verbal reasoning, I might have a serious shot. But throwing physics into the mix has me worried.

Way back in first year, almost three years ago, I thought I was saying goodbye to physics. Forever. After writing my exam, I would never have to see its face again. No more calculating the distance traveled by a projectile. Or determining how long it takes a soccer ball thrown from a height of 80 metres with an initial velocity of 10 metres per second to reach the ground. As for those two trains —the ones that are speeding towards each other, with hundreds of hypothetical passengers’ lives at stake — who cares what their final speed is, or how long it takes them to collide? Not me.

At least, I didn’t care until this summer. Now that I’m studying for the MCAT, physics has returned from the past — like a bad guy in an action movie who I thought was dead, but instead of shooting him a second time (just to be sure), I turned my back and didn’t notice the ominous music.

The problem is that the last time we saw each other, it didn’t end very well. Every time I tried to patch things up, physics would bring up the centrifugal force. Now, I’m asking myself: why is physics even tested on the MCAT?

Biology makes sense. Mostly. Some of the specifics seem a little irrelevant, like the details of cellular metabolism, but hey, med school is all about biology, right? And as much as I hate chemistry, I grudgingly accept the fact that it has a place in med school, too. Sure, I’d like to lie to myself and claim that chemistry has no real-world applications in medicine. But then I’d have to ignore the existence of pharmaceuticals (even the boring sections in my organic chemistry textbook are important for future doctors).

But for some reason, back when the MCAT was being created, someone stupidly invited physics to the party. I just don’t see how physics can help a doctor treat their patients. Unless the patient is a passenger on a train. A train that is heading south at a velocity of 80 kilometers per hour, on the same tracks as a train that is heading north at a velocity of 72 kilometers per hour…

What you need to know about MD-PhD programs

Thousands of students apply to medical school across Canada every year, and the vast majority of them will never even make it to an interview. The chances of success improve for repeat applicants, but the fact remains: even with high marks and stellar extracurricular activities, applying to a Canadian med school is an uphill battle against discouraging statistics. After completing their undergraduate degree and receiving a rejection letter, the big question facing these students is: now what?

Mike Saccone, a fourth-year Health Studies Co-op student, already has a plan B.

“My back-up plan is research based. I will pursue a Masters in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University,” he says. The Masters degree could even hit two birds with one stone.

“Hopefully, this will improve the chances of me getting into medical school, along with fulfilling a degree requirement that I will eventually pursue.”

Saccone says he was exposed to both sides of medicine- research and patient care- while working with a research-focused orthopaedic surgeon, and then working with a surgeon whose primary focus was on patient care.

Colleen Shortt, a fourth year Health Studies and Gerontology student, isn’t considering research as a backup plan to med school. She recently applied to graduate school programs at the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario, and McMaster, and is hoping to pursue a career in cancer or HIV/AIDS research. Shortt says that once she’s through grad school she may be interested in applying to med school.

“I thought about applying to med school and originally it was my plan A. But once I started looking into research opportunities I found that this may be a more effective way of reaching more people.”

Khuram Bhatti, a fourth year arts and science student, says he has considered numerous programs and careers, including optometry or pharmacy, and even programs in the States.

“I am considering schools such as the osteopathy programs in the United States, or other types of up and coming schools which have a schooling regiment which is sort of ‘newer,’ comparatively to something such as the MD career field.”

For med school hopefuls who don’t make the cut, pursuing a grad school program is a win-win: it improves their chances on a second application, and at the same time, they’re developing the skills for a different career path. Many med schools look for research or medically-related experience, and some even award additional points to applicants who have completed a graduate degree. McMaster gives an additional 1% to the pre-interview score of MSc students, and an additional 4% for PhD students. Others, such as the University of Toronto, lower the GPA cutoff for graduate students.

Keith Colaco, a third year Biomedical Sciences student, says that although he has always wanted to attend med school and become a physician, in high school he considered becoming an optometrist because of the challenges of pursuing a career in medicine.

“As I started taking more medically-related courses in university, volunteering in hospitals and speaking to medical students, I quickly changed my mind because I was so intrigued by the field and strongly felt the need to help those with medical problems.”

This summer Colaco will be working at the Holland Orthopaedic and Arthritic Centre in Toronto, where he hopes to gain insight into pursuing a medical career. Ultimately, he may combine his passion for medicine and research.

“I am very interested in clinical research rather than focusing on just research in the lab because I have always enjoyed interacting with patients in past volunteer experiences,” he says. “By working in a patient-care setting, it allows me to evaluate patients and conduct research at their bedside.”

Students like Colaco, who want to combine research with patient interaction, are in luck: an MD-PhD program offers the best of both worlds, allowing students to complete the MD curriculum while pursuing a PhD, training them for careers ranging from medical research to the design of healthcare delivery systems. Most of the programs describe their graduates as ‘clinician-scientists,’ with the curriculum juggling between academic course work, training in basic sciences and research, and clinical rotation. Dr. Norman Rosenblum, Director of the MD/PhD Program at the University of Toronto, says that applicants should have “considerable background with some area of science” in addition to experience that “demonstrates an interest in medicine and a knowledge of the clinician-scientist role.”

Some programs, such as the “MD Plus” Leaders in Medicine program at the University of Calgary, go beyond the basic sciences and allow students to pursue any graduate-level field of interest, including a Masters in philosophy or business.

Most med schools across Canada offer the MD-PhD program, with many being created in the past several years. The only drawback? Getting in is even tougher than med school. The program requires students to be accepted into both a medical and a Masters program (or in some cases, a graduate program) and enrollment is extremely limited, with most MD-PhD programs only having enough spots for a handful of students. For example, there are only five spots available in the University of Toronto MD-PhD program, while the University of Ottawa program only has room for four.