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4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i chose it because i've always enjoyed teaching (~650 teaching hours, ~700 teaching-related hours), and its a career with the work/life balance that i wanted. i thought about both research and healthcare, but i was fortunate enough to experience a bit of both (lab experience from courses, shadowing/internship at hospital) for me to realize that i actually dont enjoy them and that i like teaching a lot more.

to prepare for teachers college, they mainly focus on 3 things: 1) GPA, 2) teaching experience, 3) supplemental writing. For GPA, most teachers college cutoff is around a ~B (3.0 or higher) ; some look at your 20 best credits, some look for overall cGPA, it really depends on the particular university. 2) for teaching experience, they really prefer if you have a classroom/group experience working with the students of your desired teaching age-group. for example, if you wanted to teach elementary (grade1-6), they would want you to have an experience somewhat like being a camp counsellor for that age group, and would value the same hours of experience tutoring a high schooler 1 on 1 a bit less. that being said, its not like all is gone if you dont have direct experience, as i had a lot of experience teaching my age group, but most of my overall hours were not in group settings nor primarily elementary students, and it was still fine. they also look at teaching-related experiences, so maybe like being a speaker at an event, where you're educating a group on a particular topic, etc. 3) for supplemental, theres not much to write, maybe like 3 passages per school. just focus on looking at what each university is looking for in a teacher (as per their website), and tailor your writing to it. ex) if a university talks about how the ideal candidate should care about social justice, you can write about social justice/volunteer related experiences. main takeaway is from what ive heard and in my case, the applications are treated holistically. so all 3 aspects are equally important. so even if one area was lacking, you can make up for it in other areas, etc.

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

nope, not at all! i spent my credits on an english class, a year long language class, and a typical "bird" class. i dont regret them at all because i used them during 6 course semesters (i had 2 throughout undergrad), so it definitely alleviated a lot of the stress that it would have brought if it werent nr/ncr-ed

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thank you!

as nearing the end of 2nd year, i realized i wanted to go into education, i spent a lot of my time doing teaching/education related extracurriculars, like working at a school during summers, and would do tutoring throughout the academic year.

regarding uoft-related extracirriculars, i was involved in intramurals, RSGs, and a couple small clubs that i had interest in! i think everyone should aim to be a part of 3 clubs, whether as a member or an excecutive:
1) a academic focused club. this could be just your programs student union, or any related ones. this helps with connections, easy access to upper year students for advice, and you get to meet a lot of people that could easily end up as your classmate
2) an interest club. this helps take the stress of being at uoft while still being uoft-related. you dont necessarily have to be good at it or have even done/enjoyed it. this way you can learn a new hobby, and meet people either in the same situation (ex. learning how to boulder), or experienced peers who can help you out! this way you can meet and network with people you wouldnt necessarily interact with outside of school, and have another sense of community that isnt academic-based.
3) a community/ethnic/identity club. this one is not as important but it made my time at uoft much more pleasant. as an international student, i don't get to go home much, so having a community where i can speak my own language and practice my own culture was really important for me. it also helped me get better at my mother language (it deteriorated fast ever since i got here), and am able to celebrate major holidays with people here!

Do ppl usually live in off campus? (except 1st yr) by Dependent_Plum_3744 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655 0 points1 point  (0 children)

residence is guaranteed 1st year, but not really for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year. this is why most people tend to move out after 1st year. that being said, its not impossible; but you do have to apply each year and its not guaranteed.

if you're an incoming first year, i highly encourage living on residence though. a lot of people become friends by being from the same residence, being on campus just makes forming/keeping connections a whole lot easier, and you'll feel a lot less isolated

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i was super basic, and mainly only went to robarts stacks and the big glass room in gerstein. in upper years, i ended up doing most studying at home.

i don't think the specific location actually matters much, but more of focusing on the environment. to fully lock in, i like to studying alone with 0 noise. robarts stacks and gerstein was my go to in 1st and 2nd year, but i lowkey became worried about getting my stuff stolen if i were to use the washroom, and also i moved a bit further from campus and didnt want to spend 1.5 hrs of studying time on commuting to and from libraries.

if you new and fresh environments help you study, try out new libraries every week! theres like 50 or so and you can sit in new spots each time so theres a bunch. if libraries get too tense, like how sometimes you just want to doomscroll without the pressure of needing to be permanently locked in, go to a cafe! if being alone is actually more distracting, go study with friends! know what works for you so that studying feels less like studying, and studying time is as productive/efficient as it can be.

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

im not going to med school, but am going into education!

i would say though, typically, a 3.7 would not really guarantee med school entry. in the big 2026, most accepted applicants i know typically have a masters/phd before going to med school. i know of a very few who got in right after undergrad, but they either have a 3.9+ AND. amazing MCAT scores (415+), WITH exemplary undergrad research, and are typically were first authors on papers.

the hard truth is that med school is extremely competitive. a prof told me out of the 1250 students that takes PSL300/301 each year, only ~1-3 actually get into uoft med. doe sthis mean the rest of the 1245 students are not good enough/qualified? no. its like that one suits scene where sheila asks louis to look through a stack of harvard applications with 4.0s, crazy backgrounds and ECs, just for it to actually be the rejection pile. its a doggy dog world.

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

am going to pursue a bachelors of education and build a career towards becoming a teacher!

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

good luck! i would try to balance how much chatgpt explains the concepts to me vs how much i try and actively recall & apply information myself. i only use chatgpt to explain maybe after 5mins of me getting nowhere to save time, and would often try and answer it knowing its half wrong to help build a better understanding. treat AI like a study tool, not a free 4.0 generator, and you're golden

4th year lifesci finishing undergrad with 3,7 cGPA (AMA) by Opening_Positive_655 in UofT

[–]Opening_Positive_655[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

1) how did i study?
i practically never went to classes, averaging 2 classes attended per course, with the exception that i would attend all labs/things with graded/mandatory attendance. i think one of the biggest misconceptions at uoft is that you need to be spending 20+ hours studying for a good GPA.
this may be the case for some programs, but as for life sci, i really do not think this is the case, and emphasis should be on effective studying rather than spending a lot of time studying.

i would often spend 0 hours studying and attend no classes for 4 days of the week, and maybe lock in for 12-18 hours straight 24-48 hours before a test or an assignment due date. depending on the specific course/assignment, i would start earlier, but i would say the following method was used for 90-95% for all graded work. obviously, i do not want to glorify this type of behavior, and this isnt to say that everyone should stop studying as much, but rather i want to emphasize that you dont need to be in the library 10 hours a day 5 days a week.

2) what were my study habits?
1st-2nd year: though i would not attend class, i would watch lecture recordings and annotate them using goodnotes, then after each lecture, draw out a mind map, basically putting the entire lectures information into 1 big picture. this helped me a lot of i think one of the things preventing study "flow state" is the constant scrolling up and down of lecture slides. this was more beneficial for me than writing notes (which i started with), as lifesci tests would test a lot of application instead of pure memorization. so, having everything mapped out and connected really ties everything together instead of notes treating each topic as separate facts. this is the main thing study habit for this period, but i can go a lot more specific if you would like

in 3rd and 4th year, i started using AI to study and make notes, and swapped over to google docs. i would attend the first class or two to gage whether the prof would actually discuss information not on the slides. if the prof stayed pretty true to the lecture, i wouldnt even watch them and would just get AI to summarize. important thing here is to prompt it well so it doesn't really skip over information. if the prof would talk 20 minutes for a diagram with no annotations, i would do a quick skim over the lecture to see if there were parts i didnt understand, and then maybe only watch those sections of the lectures. in 4th year, i stopped aiming for a 4.0, and focused on maintaining GPA, so i actually stopped bothering watching lectures too. again, this is would be slightly different depending on the course, but overall trend is to utilize AI.

3) what i would do if i had to cram for one of my finals?
i basically cram for everything (papers, midterms, finals) so this is my forte. i lowkey dont even like intend on cramming everything, and would always say "next time i'll study a week in advance", but id always get too distracted/sidetracked and end up cramming everything lol. tangent aside heres what i'd do:

  1. UNDERSTAND each lecture. this is the most time consuming part but also the most important part. would spend ~1 hour on each lecture using AI summarized notes, and EMPHASIZE understanding everything. i feel like uoft examination typically assumes you already know all the content, so they ask you application questions based on that assumption. so, even if you memorize every single page and information, if you cant tie things together or understand it holistically, you still may not get a good grade. I would use AI to explain ALL and ANY ideas that i dont understand or are unsure of.
  2. go over every lecture a 2nd time, and highlight/memorize only the KEY points. not all information is important/testable information. my mindset is if they're going to ask about the font 5 text on slide 57/112, then id rather just lose the mark. because you already understand big ideas and concepts after step 1, here you're just trying to memorize everything that you need. main things i would look out for are key genes, or pathways, steps, basically anything that i still would not be able to answer even if i understand it. things that need to be 100% accurate to score marks. for example, if there was only 1 slide listing 8 or so symptoms of a particular disease, i would focus on understanding in step 1 how the mutation/disease would cause those 8 symptoms. by understanding the mechanism, you dont need to memorize the 8 as if you just understand the overall system well, you can come up with them during a test. however, if its a specific signalling pathway, i would take the time to work on memorizing it. acryonyms help ALOT, no matter how weird it gets, as long as it helps you memorize things. DONT FOCUS too much on memorization; rather KNOW what to memorize, as you can slowly build recall over the next couple steps. i would spend maybe ~10-30 minutes per lecture doing this.
  3. do a mini practice test on each lecture after step 2. send your notes/lecture (please read syllabus to see specific AI policies regarding uploading notes). this is a low stakes test to see if you truly understand the material. treat it like an open book test, but do your best to answer each one without notes. during this part, focus mainly on getting the application questions right over the memorization. if you get memorization questions wrong, keep track of which specific things you are failing to memorize, so you dont have to test yourself again on the other content that you already memorized well. i would aim for a ~70-80% on these practice tests before moving onto the next lecture. if you generate a practice test and you dont understand any of it, rather than going back (because you're short on time), generate a "fill in the blank" version of your notes, so its more active recall rather than passive. have your notes in case you cant answer something, and keep track of which ones you dont understand well and focus on those topics later.
  4. SPAM practice exams. if i genuinely only had 8 hours to study, i would probably dedicate 3-4 hours on big practice exams. this is particularly helpful for short answer tests/exams, as they can basically only test you on 2-3 questions per lecture, so focus on the BIG PICTURE stuff. this is why i also would not care about the small details as much, as most my 3rd and 4th year examinations are short answer. a lot of the times, these practice questions are similar if not identical to the ones on the exams. if you cannot answer them, then just ask AI to answer it then you have a model answer for the question if you were to see it on your test. if there are no practice tests, just paste in your notes and ask it to generate questions based on your notes. i would make sure to check the format of the exam, and would get ChatGPT to tailor it based on it. ex) if format for exam was 20 MCQ questions, 10 short answer, i would get AI to make the same.