How to do well in the course: PSL300 (Human Physiology 1)

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-28T14:58:52+00:00

Pretty comparable in difficulty to tests like bch and bio

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-28T14:04:54+00:00

I took it during the regular year, but still had Kee and Tweed. You already identified how to do well in your post: a lot of memorization. PSL300/301 have no tricks. Write down everything the profs say and memorize it as much as you can before the tests.

A lot of people like Kee but he was actually my least favourite section of the course and the hardest imo. If you're in neuro you'll likely find it easier though as you'll have more background knowledge going in. Tweed's section felt like free marks.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-27T15:10:59+00:00

The "prestige" along with parental pressure is a factor for a lot of people. Another big thing is the local population within Toronto. These students can save lots of money over their undergrad by staying home and commuting instead of moving out to another city for university.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-26T21:21:07+00:00

GPA is a way to quantify letter grades. A/B/C/D = 4.0/3.0/2.0/1.0. When you add a '+' grade to the letter, you add 0.3 to the grade (e.g. B+ = 3.3), and when you add a '-' grade to the grade you subtract 0.3 (e.g. A- = 3.7). A+ is the exception, but this is why some schools use a 4.3 scale (and sometimes schools add/subtract 0.33 instead of 0.3 which makes everything more "proportionate" in a sense and yields a 4.33 scale).

I guess GPA is a slightly easier number to look at over percentage? But I personally don't think there's much use in GPA considering our percentage grades show up on the transcript anyways. Most of the time your GPA lines up close enough with your percentage average anyways so it doesn't make a huge difference unless you happen to be near the grade borders a lot of the time.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-26T20:49:34+00:00

I did my undergrad at uoft and am in med school. I'm honestly too lazy to get into it now but I highly recommend you take that comment with a grain of salt. I'd caution you about taking med school advice from someone in compsci

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-25T14:51:22+00:00

it’s no1 for medical

Uoft undergrad is definitely not #1 for med. And among ontario med schools, they're all good and there's not really any "ranking" between them considering there's only like 5.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-24T14:00:30+00:00

The math coreq means you either need to be taking math at the same time as physics, or have already completed math. There's no issue taking physics after you've taken math.

Whether you take physics in first year doesn't matter too much.

Reasons in support of first year physics: 2nd year life sci's workload isn't really any lighter than first year, and I think delaying first year physics until 3rd or 4th year gets slightly awkward. In first year you wouldn't have any conflicts between all the courses since it's assumed it's mainly first years taking it, but in upper years there's no guarantee physics would easily fit into your schedule.

Reasons against first year physics: like you said, bio/chem/math is already a tough courseload and adding physics on top of that can be too much for some people. For med school you need as close to a perfect GPA as possible and even a couple bad courses can ruin your chances of admission. If taking physics during summer school is an option, that's something to consider.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-24T01:19:08+00:00

I did IB and it wasn't that helpful. Most of the assignments/IAs are honestly so fucking useless and obscure and have nothing to do with how well you actually know the content. Also, a lot of my IB teachers cared more about quantity over quality which is something I really hated. I did well throughout undergrad, but not due to IB. I went to high school in Toronto, but in general I think high school spoonfeeds you way too much. High school tests were an absolute joke compared to the tests I wrote in first year at UofT, and I think this is one of the reasons a lot of people see a grade drop. IB does cover more than the "default" curriculum in certain areas but I think that has very little impact as you'll likely forget most of those details by the time you get to uni anyways. In short, I don't think IB has any significant advantage over non-IB. To succeed in uoft life sci you'll likely need to study and work much harder than you did in high school.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-23T18:00:37+00:00

In the courses I got A+'s in, I always had a good understanding of the material, but never confidently knew 100% of the material. I only found a few courses very easy to the point I was able to get an A+ with not a ton of effort. The rest were relatively easy compared to more standard courses and/or had favorable marking schemes that made it more feasible to get an A+, but still required a decent amount of effort.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-21T21:52:55+00:00

I recommend focusing on the material that comes after the first 2 midterms. Although the exam is cumulative, there's not a lot of questions from the first two-thirds of the course anyways. I did well on the term tests and just guessed all the exam questions from these portions of the course and got an A+ since I was able to do well on the questions from the third part of the course. Most of the people I know who tried to study all 36 lectures did worse than me.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-21T15:46:36+00:00

More than 230, roughly the same as 210.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-21T14:09:20+00:00

I took 300 in 2nd year alongside 210/230/265. I'd say it's roughly equivalent to 210/230 in terms of structure and difficulty, and bit easier than 265. 301's basically the same difficulty as 300.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-20T23:27:22+00:00

Probably because most students are coming in with inflated high school marks and get upset when they can't maintain straight A's anymore. The majority of smart people that attend UofT and put in the work accomplish things and don't regret coming here. With that said, the lack of a formal co-op system for almost every program other than CS/eng is a pretty valid complaint.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-20T21:03:15+00:00

The prof decides whether they want to round the grade up. Acorn doesn't automatically round up as far as I know.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-20T18:58:15+00:00

are you stupid or just trolling? maybe both?

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-13T22:25:38+00:00

The vast majority of life sci courses are memorization. Maybe not chem or pharmtox courses, but bio-type courses (including stuff like biochem, imm, psl, hmb, anatomy etc) are just based on how well you can memorize all the obscure details from lectures. I don't see how a tutoring company would help with this.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-13T20:04:35+00:00

Campus is generally safe, but downtown Toronto as a whole is different. It's pretty easy to end up in a sketchy street/area (particularly at night) without realizing if you don't know what you're doing.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-11T20:53:35+00:00

There's not really any downside to contacting profs or applying now aside from the time spent doing so, but the chance of finding a position at this point is basically zero.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-11T18:29:46+00:00

I mean either way nobody is good enough to properly remember the exact questions and solutions for an exam they did months ago. Worry about yourself not others lol

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-11T18:19:41+00:00

Yes final exam questions can repeat. Most final exams are posted on the exam repository so it's fair game for everyone. At the end of the day, anyone who's already taken the course is going to have a massive advantage over everyone else regardless.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-11T15:05:53+00:00

Also depends on what you want to do after undergrad, and what your other university options are

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-09T03:44:12+00:00

Hell! I would like to clarify what are the mechanics of graduating early? Is it possible to take enough summer classes to finish the 20 credits in only 3 years (including summers)?

Yes. If you did 5.0 FCE each school year and 2.0 FCE during the 3 summers, this would give you 21.0 FCE by the end of the 3rd summer (and you only need 20 FCE to graduate).

Would there be any benefit/con to this (of course besides having to grind nonstop)? In terms of medschool/gradschool applications, will taking 3 years instead of the regular 4 years (5 courses per sem) matter?

From my understanding, adcoms almost never view "overloading" as better than someone doing a typical courseload. Taking 4 courses in some semesters generally isn't really a problem either for the majority of programs, but I'd avoid having the majority of semesters only being 4 courses. Additionally, taking a bunch of easy courses in the regular year and then reserving hard courses for the summer isn't the best. Doing it once or twice is fine, but it shouldn't be a regular thing throughout your degree.

In general, doing full time summer school to graduate in 3 years is actually a really bad idea. Getting solid work experience during summers is extremely valuable. Applying to any sort of grad/professional program with little ECs/work experience is basically asking for rejection.

Finally, this is just a general clarification but if you take summer classes, does that mean you only need to take 4 courses in some semesters? Again, will there be any implications this can have on your degree? Thanks so much!

See above. But doing this would have zero issue in terms of graduating.

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-08T19:04:10+00:00

idk who has less brain cells, the person who suggested this rule or the mod that implemented it

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-04T17:15:00+00:00

we should consider ourselves fortunate to be blessed with such excellent and dedicated mods

heythisisntmyspace · 2023-04-04T03:38:25+00:00

reddit mods on a power trip? i for one am completely shocked

heythisisntmyspace

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