About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article on my thoughts about what to keep in mind when applying to university, using my personal experience as an example.

In that article, I focused mostly on figuring out which university fits you best based on program, location, opportunities, etc. However, there is one more important question you need to ask yourself when thinking about your education that I completely failed to mention.

In short, that question is: what do I want out of my education?

At first glance it may seem like an odd question to ask, but it’s really not. It seems odd because many of us have our own ideas about what the purpose of your educational experience is or should be – but the truth is that your educational experience is whatever you want it to be. There is no one right way to view your education, and it’s important to always realize that, despite what people may argue.

Some people just want to learn. Very often they are genuinely and strongly interested in the topics at hand, and want to sponge up as much as possible.

On the other hand, some people go to university purely for the degree. Usually this in terms of job prospects or further education requirements (e.g. professional schools, graduate schools, etc.).

Of course, if you’re applying to professional school (such as medical school), marks matter. So some people go to university primarily to get the grades required to move on to something else.

In my opinion, these are all legitimate. It bothers me when people try to act as if there is some universal agreement as to what we should want out of our education (e.g. “You shouldn’t be picking your school just for the sake of getting good marks!” There are reasons why doing so is often not a good idea, but it has nothing to do with a right or wrong way of looking at education). Quite often, what we want out of our education will be some combination of 2 or 3 of these views, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

When you are thinking of where you want to go to university, you need to reflect on all of these issues, because different undergraduate programs will be more conducive to one of these aspects than the others.

So take the time to figure out what you want out of your university education – it’ll save you a lot of head ache down the road!

Related posts:

1. What’s up with premed altruism and nobility? As I have mentioned many times before, I feel like...
2. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
3. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 5: Putting it All Together Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student starting this fall, but I am not on the admissions committee and never have been. All of the advice I will provide here is based on my own opinion and personal experience with the application process, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt.

As you have read in Part 1 of this series, I strongly believe that your essay should have an overall focus on your genuine desire to not only be a physician, but one who is dedicated for the long run – that is, help the judge understand that being a physician is something you are so passionate about that they will feel motivated to do anything to help you.

Just to be clear, when I talk about showing long term dedication, I’m not saying you need to say that you will do this or that once you are a physician. What I’m saying is that you need to illustrate that you have seriously thought about your decision to apply, because individuals who are serious about applying would have done some decent research into what it means to be a physician, and yet still want to be one. Someone who shows this seriousness and maturity about life decisions is likely to be someone that will strive to do their best in their role as a physician for years to come.

In this article, we will focus on the first item the University of Toronto admissions committee wants us to comment on within our essay: Your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences.

However, I’d like to make my own modification to that statement. I think your essay should comment on your personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences, which are relevant to your journey towards a career in medicine.

This is a medical school essay, so talk about medicine

Even though the essay asks you to talk about your personal background, interests, and experiences, realize that you have a word limit (1000 words, which isn’t very much) and so you need to be selective – that being said, even without the word limit, you should be selective in the first place because this is not a random personal essay. This is an essay for your application to become a doctor. So if you’re going to write a life story, it shouldn’t just be your entire life story – it should be the parts of your life integral to your journey towards medicine.

Everything you mention in your essay should somehow relate to your overall theme – that is, if you were to pick any paragraph in your essay, you should be able to tell me exactly how it relates to your interest medicine and/or your journey towards becoming a physician. If you can’t do that, then you might need to rethink that part over.

Now, the relationship doesn’t have to be extremely direct – that is, every paragraph or idea you mention doesn’t have to be about doctors, hospitals, diseases, etc. But everything you write should always be relevant to your overall theme, and this relevance should be made obvious. The admissions judge should not have to think about why you’re mentioning this experience in your essay – you want to be direct and clear.

For instance, in my essay I mention that a lot of my community involvement has involved working with or advocating for children and youth. If I had just described these experiences and left it at that, this would be a rather weak component of my essay – it would be some floating experience. While those experiences have played a significant role in nurturing my interest in medicine, not elaborating further on why would be a big mistake. So I didn’t stop there. Rather, I made it quite clear (in fact, I even blatantly stated so), that these experiences have motivated me towards pursuing a medical profession in pediatrics.

Perhaps you ran a university club that has nothing to do with medicine or health care. Yet if you strongly feel that this experience has helped you develop collaborative, leadership, and communication skills that will make you a good doctor, then yes this is definitely relevant – but like I said, you need to make this connection clear in your essay.

The important thing is not necessarily the experience, event, or accomplishment itself in a vacuum, but how it has impacted/shaped your journey towards medicine.

So when considering what background/interests/experiences you should focus on in your essay, ask yourself these questions:

• What experiences have inspired / motivated me to consider medicine as a potential career? Which had the most impact, and why?
• What events have significantly impacted the type of physician I want or hope to be?
• What experiences have helped me develop skills that would be useful as a physician?

Making sense: Why mentioning “relevant” experiences is crucial

People don’t like to be confused. Everything is easier when things make logical sense. In the same way, it is easier for an admissions judge to see you as a future doctor when the essay you give them suggests it makes sense for you to be one.

Imagine an applicant whose essay focused on him being the top student in his philosophy program, winning an Olympic gold medal in figure skating, and representing Canada at a prestigious international conference on climate change. Despite their amazingness in a vacuum, none of these experiences, without further elaboration, clearly point to an interest in medicine. So unless the applicant can clearly explain how mentioning these experiences relate to his interest in and long term dedication towards a career in medicine, it may have been better to mention less “unique” experiences, such as the year he spent volunteering in a medical clinic and interacting with patients.

You don’t want the admissions judge questioning either your interest in, readiness, or ability to be a competent physician. You put all of that at risk unless your essay demonstrates that it “makes sense” for you to be a physician.

The Obsession with Standing Out

I think there is sometimes an obsession with applicants about the need to “stand out” – to be unique among the rest of the applicants. Here are the facts though – admissions committees are not looking for individuals who are different, they are looking for individuals who they believe will be good doctors.

My take on this is that you can stand out by writing a more powerful, moving essay than anyone else. Write your true, honest story about your desire to be a physician. But in order to do that, you need to be selective about the aspects of your personal history you mention – and it should all be clearly relevant to your interest in the medical profession.

Related posts:

1. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
2. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 5: Putting it All Together Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
3. So I didn’t get into medical school… what now? If you applied to medical school this past year, you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The other day, someone asked me if I could write an article on shadowing. While I don’t have any real advice for finding mentors to shadow besides “just asking”, I remembered an article I wrote a few years ago about my experience shadowing a physician, and why I thought job shadowing as a whole is important and something every student should take the time to explore. I dug up the article, and I hope you guys find it helpful…

I observed intently as Dr. Rutka took a deep breath before sharing the grave news with the mother. Her son, who has had epilepsy for years, requires brain surgery to remove a tumour that the doctor believes to be causing his seizures. However, there are huge risks involved, especially if the boy has a seizure during surgery. I felt a lump in my throat as the mother hammered the doctor with questions in a hysterical manner, clearly concerned over the health of her son. My eyes gazed in admiration at the powerful calm in Dr. Rutka’s voice as he consoled the mother. His compassion for the boy and his family resonated throughout the room. I began to wonder if I could keep the same poise and composure if I were in Dr. Rutka’s position. I was sure it was situations like these that make a career in medicine difficult, stressful and often heart wrenching.

A few patients later, I watched attentively as Amro, a neurosurgery resident, performed a routine check up on a young girl who had brain surgery just a few months before. Although he was still in training, Amro showed obvious passion for the long career in neurosurgery that lay ahead. The girl’s mother watched Amro in awe, saying, “when I think about how many lives you’re going to save one day, I can’t help but feel inspired”. I couldn’t help but smile and share in the special moment. It was then that I realized in spite of the blood, sweat and tears of a career in medicine, moments like these made everything worth it.

The opportunity to shadow a world class pediatric neurosurgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children doesn’t come along everyday. In the last few years, my interest in medicine – particularly in pediatrics and neuroscience – have grown. Still, I wanted to make sure that the health care environment was right for me. The privilege to learn from Dr. Rutka over the current school year comes from a career mentorship program run by Youth in Motion, a Canadian organization striving to help shape the futures of our youth. Youth in Motion develops and implements career mentoring programs that connect youth with adults in their choice of career.

“Career mentoring is a highly valuable and worthwhile experience for youth. It enables them to explore a career field in a unique and personalized format,” says Akela Peoples, President and CEO of Youth in Motion. “Dialoguing with someone in the workforce enables students to get important and relevant questions answered, provides an opportunity to learn directly from someone who has travelled a particular path before them and, most importantly, facilitates the transfer of unfiltered information.”

Observing Dr. Rutka’s work has only enhanced my aspirations to enter a career of medicine, and I now hope to work at the Hospital for Sick Children someday. It is fortunate that this “shadowing” experience reinforced my aspirations; indeed, I could just as easily have detested the hospital environment. If that were the case, imagine how dreadful it would be if I had gone through the endless years of education and training to become a doctor, only to realize it wasn’t the career for me!

For aspiring entrepreneurs like David Wen of Surrey, British Columbia, connecting with the CEO of a company created a life changing relationship. “Mentors are people who truly care for your well being, since their success is not dependant on yours,” says Wen, whose mentor has allowed him to witness many aspects of business, including sales pitches. “They are like honest and determined salespeople who do not work on commission.”

James Valitchka, already an 11 year old best-selling author hailing from Ottawa, Ontario, believes that you can never be too young to seek out a mentor for advice. “It’s really important to have a mentor to talk to about life and the future,” claims Valitchka, who has been paired up by Youth in Motion with a businessperson and one-time author. “They keep you encouraged and their advice can stop you from making mistakes. They share their experiences with you and make you a better and smarter person.”

As students, you are in the midst of a journey of discovery and reflection, trying to determine your direction in life. Like many before you, you might feel absolutely sure that you will become a lawyer, surgeon, web designer or teacher. At the same time, how can you be so sure that defending criminals in court, performing brain surgery, designing websites or teaching high school is something you would be happy doing? The fact is you won’t know until you try. And while shadowing won’t let you experience the job directly, you will better understand the field.

Having career mentors becomes ever so important for those of us about to embark on a brand new journey – the transition into adulthood. For some of us, the distance ahead is as clear as the sky; for others, it is a blurry mixture. There are those who have planned their entire lives out for the next fifty years, and for the rest of us, every thought, action and decision is perhaps spontaneous. Yet no matter how prepared you are for the future, you need to step in the shoes of those careers yourselves – and there is no better way to do so than by actually learning from individuals in the field.

Related posts:

1. What do I want out of my university education? About a year and a half ago, I wrote an...
2. Hidden Luck Luck, variance, randomness – whatever you want to call it,...
3. So I didn’t get into medical school… what now? If you applied to medical school this past year, you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have always done well in school my whole life. Throughout both elementary and high school, I had rarely gotten close to a failing grade in anything. And even the few times I did, the weight of those assignments or tests was not that significant, and as you eventually learn, high school marks don’t matter that much once you reach a certain point.

When I got to university, I had planned on taking school a bit more seriously. Unlike high school where you have numerous tests, assignments and exams per course (and thus, failing a single test probably does not affect your final mark too much), university courses tend to be composed of fewer components that are worth more. As a result, messing up even one test could now significantly hurt your final mark. For example, the microeconomics course I took last year had two tests (25% each) and one final exam (50%). The final exam itself had just 40 multiple choice questions, meaning that each question was worth 1.25% of my final mark!

However, the bigger reason why I wanted to take my university academics more seriously is because I was interested in eventually applying to medical school. While medical schools differ on how much they value GPA, the fact of the matter is that given the competitive nature of the process, it makes sense to do your best. You will never know when that extra point might just be the difference between an acceptance and a rejection.

Nonetheless, the reality is that university is more difficult than high school. And while I wasn’t expecting it, I did hit a rough patch during the fall of my first year. There was a particular week where, back to back, I got the two worst marks I have ever received in university so far – 60′s on both a physics and chemistry test. I was partly upset because of how it could affect my final marks in the course, but I think I was even more hurt because I expected to do better than that.

However, did this mean I was now a C-student in my physics and chemistry courses?

Expectation and the Long Run

The short answer is no, not necessarily. What you achieve on a single test is not a perfect indicator of your ability – that’s why you normally have more than one evaluated component to a course. The idea is that the more times you need to be marked, the greater the probability that your scores will converge on your long-term expected mark. So while it may be possible for you to fail or ace a single test due to unforeseen circumstances or random luck, it is way more difficult to do so over many tests.

For example, say you and I decide to flip a single coin. You pick heads, and as it turns out, the coin lands heads. Does this mean you are way better at flipping coins than I am? Not necessarily. Something working out once or a few times doesn’t mean that it is always going to turn out that way.

Why do you think major sports leagues tend to have multi-game playoffs? For example, in both the NHL (hockey) and the NBA (basketball), the playoffs involve teams playing a best of 7 series (i.e. the first time to win four games moves on to the next round). The idea here is to reduce variance by having teams play more than once.

Although it is possible that a technically worse team could defeat a better one in a best of 7 series, that is less likely to occur than in a best of 1 series. The fact that one team loses a single game does not mean it is a worse team than the other – so many factors could have affected the result (e.g. injuries, mental lapses, etc.). Even if one team is so much better than the other that it should win 90% of the time, that still means the better team should also lose 10% of the time. It is nearly impossible for a team to have a 100% success rate against any other team in competitive sports.

In the same way, just because I got 60% on my two tests, does not necessarily mean that I am a long-term 60% student in first year chemistry and physics. However, in the same way, achieving 90% on those two tests isn’t enough proof to suggest that I am not a long-term 60% student either. In either case, the sample size just isn’t large enough.

As it turned out, thanks to some luck and hard work, I was able to pull off A+’s in both those courses. Although those results are by no means definitive of my abilities, I think it is pretty safe to say that my long term expectation in first year physics and chemistry courses is closer to an A than to a C. While analyzing a random test result during the year might say otherwise, one of the things you must constantly remember is that the long-term is always more important. That’s why your final mark, which takes into account an entire year or semester’s worth of evaluated components, is what you find on your transcript and some random single test is not.

If you studied hard and fell sick the morning of one of your exams, what more could you have really done? Imagine a hypothetical scenario where you had to take the same type of exam everyday for a year. Perhaps when healthy, you would average 90% on the exam. However, when sick, you would average 20%. And let’s say that you always get sick 10 days a year (out of 365 days). In that case, if this exam occurred on any random day, your long term expected value for this specific exam would be [355(0.90) + 10(0.20)]/365 = 0.88 = 88%. So while your expected mark for this exam is 88%, it is very possible to have a bad, sick day where you actually achieve ~20% and there was nothing you could have done about it.

If you do fall sick on the day of your exam and do poorly, it helps to ignore the short-term result and realize the fact that over time your hard work will pay off, and that if you had to do this exam again, you do extremely well it most of the time. Your university years will be full of tests and exams, and understanding your long term expectation in the process will go a long way to keeping your self-confidence stable no matter what unfortunate circumstances are thrown your way.

Problems with Being Results-Oriented

Sometimes you are going to fail miserably in the short term; on the other hand, sometimes you will do absolutely fantastic. Realize that whether you succeeded or failed is not as important as understanding why that result happened – this is an important concept that results-oriented individuals have trouble understanding.

Being results-oriented refers to basing one’s understanding of events primarily on the specific results. The major problem with being results-oriented is that it relies on the false assumption that results are constants. People who are results-oriented tend to think only in terms of absolutes, with ideas such as “events will or won’t happen” instead of “events are more likely or less likely to happen”.

For example, say you are travelling by passenger plane and it almost crashes. A results-oriented person on that flight would immediately say flying is too dangerous and never fly again. Instead of trying to figure out exactly why that specific flight had problems, a results-oriented person just takes that single horrifying event and assumes all other flights will be like it.

While that example might seem absurd to some of you, I would bet that many of you are results-oriented in every day aspects of your life.

Say you are taking a course with a final exam that involves writing an essay. You are given four topics beforehand, and are told one of them will be used on the exam. Obviously, the smart thing to do is prepare for all four topics. However, maybe you were lazy or low on time, so you decide to only prepare for Topic 1. As it turns out, Topic 2 is used on the exam. More often than not, you will leave the exam saying: “I knew I should have studied Topic 2!” Yet the fact of the matter was that Topic 1 was equally likely to have shown up on the exam as Topic 2.

Imagine if you were results oriented with everything in your life. If you failed one test, you would just go ahead and quit school – if you can’t pass one test, then maybe you can’t pass any of them. Or if you didn’t get into medical school your first try you would just give up and think you weren’t capable. Or, worse, if you survived jumping off a building once you would think you are immortal and try it again – okay that was a bit extreme, but I just wanted to illustrate the problems with results-oriented thinking.

Results-oriented thinking is illogical. It’s like thinking that because you rolled a six with a die once, you will keep rolling six for the rest of your life.

It’s important to not let the results of events affect your decisions. Just because you over studied one time for a test does not necessarily mean you should start under-studying now. Or just because you do poorly on one test does not mean you can’t do better on the next.

Once you realize this, it becomes much easier to deal with failure and frustration.

If you work hard, in the long-term, the results will come.

Related posts:

1. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...
2. Roller Coaster of a Day Okay not really much of a roller coaster, but definitely...
3. Things I Wish I Knew before starting Medical School It has been a month since I last blogged. To...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As you learned in the first two parts of this series on success, my first Independent Study Project (ISP) for my gifted program was on the Brain and Nervous System, and I was able to achieve success by mimicking a technique I had observed from older students. However, the following year in Grade 6, every other student started creating board games to achieve their synthesis objective. If I used the board game idea again, that aspect of my project would be no different from anyone else’s.

Mimicking Can Lead to Saturation

Essentially, what we saw from then on out for the next few years was a saturation of board games at the annual ISP show case. Instead of being something new and cool to check out, it became almost expected – in a way, it became almost standard to have one.

The problem with this type of saturation is that the value for going this route decreases. There is nothing special about a product that is being made everywhere and by everyone. In the same way, once everyone started churning out board games to achieve the synthesis objective, the impressiveness of a board game I produced would decrease relative to its value the year before – when I was the only student who made one in my class.

We can see this type of situation developing all the time. Take any great product that’s the first of its kind in the market. Demand will be super high and supply will be low because only one company is making it – as a result, the value of the product is high. Conversely, once competitors enter the market with similar products, the value of each of these products decreases because the supply has increased. Eventually, the market becomes saturated with similar products.

In Grade 6, I decided to do my project on Flying Machines – essentially looking at the development of aircrafts through history and how they functioned. But once I realized that the ISP showcase would be saturated with board games, I decided to completely avoid that route and look for a new cool idea.

PowerPoint

The year was 1999, and my family had just started using Microsoft Office 2000, which came with a slew of really cool software. One day my brother was playing around with the Office 2000 software and opened up PowerPoint.

Now, all of you probably use PowerPoint slideshows today for many things, such as presentations. And as guys know, I even use PowerPoint now in making my videos. Back then, however, PowerPoint was a pretty new tool for us (and I think it was pretty new to most people overall). I’m not sure if PowerPoint was a standard tool in high schools yet, but it definitely wasn’t being taught or promoted in elementary schools.

I didn’t know what it was, but I saw my brother fumbling around with it and trying out some cool animations, and I thought it was pretty darn cool. So I started playing around with PowerPoint whenever I could. I didn’t use the Help function or try to read up on it because I found it much more fun to experiment and learn through trial and error.

After creating a bunch of random slides and testing the cool animations and sound effects, I realized PowerPoint could be used for my ISP. In terms of the evaluation of my ISP, my project would stand out again because just like the previous year, I would be using a method that was relatively original compared to everyone else.

When I finally did my presentation on Flying Machines using PowerPoint, all of my friends were amazed by how cool the presentation looked. Nowadays, I think that sitting through a presentation with flying bullets and laser sounds could get kind of annoying, but back then when you’re eleven years old, things like this are pretty awesome.

More than even my friends, my gifted teacher was absolutely astounded by the work I had put in teaching myself to use PowerPoint – as a gifted teacher, this was the kind of initiative by his students that he loved to see. I not only got a perfect mark on my ISP (something I never heard had been achieved before), but my gifted teacher asked me to create a workshop to teach my peers the basics of using PowerPoint.

Innovation

Eventually, as expected, everyone else started using PowerPoint. And of course, once I got to high school, PowerPoint became the standard for presentations. In the same way as before with the board game, presentations now became saturated with the PowerPoint format.

The important idea to take away from this is that I was able to benefit the most from the board game concept and PowerPoint format because I was the innovator – I was the one who introduced these ideas into the “market”.

Anytime you are the first one to do something, you reap more benefits of success than those who follow later on and eventually saturate the market. When no one else was making board games or using PowerPoint, I stuck out as a success. I was successful because I was different and ahead of the time.

Original and creative ideas lead to innovation, and now more than ever, innovation is almost necessary to stay competitive. Innovators are the ones leading the waves of success because they are able to take advantage of their innovations before these ideas become common place.

Imagine if companies stopped doing research and development. Imagine if they stopped trying to improve their products. What would happen? Whoever generated the next great idea would take over the industry. This concept doesn’t just apply to businesses and companies; it’s a concept that is universal to any type of success.

That is one of the problems with pursuing success through mimicking. Unless you are able to recognize the next big wave of success, you often get involved way too late, when the market is already saturated. I saw this with both board games and PowerPoint – once everyone started doing them, those ideas just weren’t “impressive” anymore.

It’s not like I worked any harder to learn how to use PowerPoint or spent more hours building my board game than any other student would have done. The value in those ideas came from being the first person in my community to introduce them to everyone else.

Becoming the Authority

In terms of achieving success in something, you want to be the first one in. And you can’t ever be the first one in if you’re just mimicking other people’s successes. In general, you can only be the first one in if you’re innovating.

Also important is the fact that it’s usually the first success who becomes the notable authority – the leader of that field or idea. It’s these authorities who eventually become the most trusted individuals in the industry. Imagine a brand new type of computer coming into the market. Who are you going to trust: the company that first made it, or the companies that copied it?

If you’re not the first one in, and you are providing a product or service that is no better than what’s currently out there, where does your value come from? Why should anyone switch from the product their currently using?

There is a plaza near my home which has a super market, small restaurants, and other stores. There is a certain restaurant location in the plaza that almost seems cursed. Any restaurant that tries opening up in that spot over the last several years has closed.

Actually, I don’t really think the restaurant is cursed. In my opinion, the problem is that any of the restaurants that have opened up there have not given potential customers any reason to switch from other restaurants in the plaza that they regularly eat at. The plaza already has a very popular Chinese cafe. Yet for some reason, a bunch of other Chinese cafe’s with similar menus keep trying to open up and this formula keeps failing. They don’t seem to recognize that because they weren’t the “first ones in”, and aren’t offering any new or different food services, they are not giving customers any reason to stop going to their current restaurant.

Adaptation

The reason why innovators are always able to be successful is because they understand the system and forces at work so well that they are able to constantly adapt to the changing environment. They are able to see new problems forming and come up with original solutions before anyone else. In order to both see these problems and figure out solutions to them, you must first understand the system in which these problems occur.

I have done well in school my entire life, and it’s not just because my natural skill set is inclined towards the school environment. A lot of my school success is due to my understanding of the education system. I have developed a very good understanding of professors and teachers, and most of the time, understand the motives behind the way they teach and evaluate. By understanding what drives educators, I am able to adapt in the academic environment, from the way I approach tests to how I prepare my assignments. No two educators approach their work the same way, and through my understanding, I am able to adjust accordingly.

If you don’t understand the system you live in and cannot adapt to changes, you will have to wait for someone else to figure those things out. And sometimes it’s just too late.

Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Whole Picture

If anything I’ve written so far in this series has not made sense, maybe an analogy would help. If you’ve read my article on ranges, you’ll know that I love using rock, paper, scissors (RPS) analogies to explain ideas.

In Part 1 of this series, we learned about the barriers preventing people from being successful at things – such individuals lack the knowledge of what it takes to be successful at something. Furthermore, they do not have a deep understanding of the system – in this case, they have no idea how the game of RPS works. We can imagine such a majority of people as poor RPS players always throwing rock.

In the minority, we have the successful, innovative RPS players who always throw paper when they compete against the unsuccessful players, and thus they always win – more importantly, these players know how the game of RPS works and understand why they are throwing paper.

Perhaps, as time goes by, some of the losing players recognize that the winning players are always throwing paper against the weaker players. Even though they don’t understand why throwing paper is good, they are smart enough to realize that if it’s working for the successful players, it’s probably the right thing to do. So this group of players starts mimicking the successful players, and throwing paper every time they compete against the weak players.

However, the number of players throwing paper now starts to increase. The field gets saturated with paper. The innovators soon realize that throwing paper is working less and less since so many more players have started mimicking their techniques (i.e. they now find themselves throwing paper against other paper way more often, resulting in a draw).

Because they understand the system and can adapt, the innovators will realize that they need to make changes to their strategy – they need to keep throwing paper against the oblivious majority, but need to start throwing scissors against the mimicking group that is now throwing paper all of the time.

Eventually, the group that can mimic success will catch on and start throwing scissors themselves – the problem is that the group that mimics will never be able to beat the innovators because they cannot adapt. That is, they can only wait for a new technique to become popular and then copy it. So while they are still ahead of the masses, they can’t reach as great a level of consistent success as the innovative, adaptive players.

So What Does this Mean for You?

If you’ve read this far, it probably means you are pretty resourceful and open-minded. I would imagine that most students reading this blog are fairly successful in their own endeavours, but are looking for that extra little push forward. I would think that many of you have become quite good at identifying successful techniques and adding them to your own arsenal, but may not have tapped into your entire creative potential yet.

All I’m saying is this: if you ever want to really get good at something and stay at the top, you have to spend the time really understanding the system you’re in, and subsequently, have the drive to identify new problems and design solutions.

I am definitely not an innovator in everything that I do. I learn a lot by observing other people, analyzing what drives them, and figuring out why their methods work.

That being said, for the things that matter the most to me, I strive hard to look at those issues from as many angles as possible, so that I can understand them to the fullest. If I want my efforts to really matter and impact the most people, I have to stay ahead of the curve.

* * * * * * * * * *

Read the other parts of the The Secret to Consistent Success series here:

• Part 1: Not Knowing How To Succeed
• Part 2: Resourcefulness and Mimicking Success
• Part 3: Adaptation and Innovation

Related posts:

1. Iron Man 2, Pinky, School, and Healthcare Innovation Last Friday I went out with my close high school...
2. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When I was in Grade 4, I was identified as “gifted” by my school board. As a result of that, I started going to a separate gifted program at another school for one day a week from Grades 5 to 8. It was a great program that allowed me to explore many neat things not really provided in the regular school setting, such as creative group projects, puzzles, logic games, independent-study projects, etc.

When school boards administer these tests to identify students as gifted, it affects students emotionally and mentally. The main reason for this is because it creates labels, and subsequently, it creates an imaginary divide between students: “gifted” and “non-gifted”. A lot of people seem to associate the term gifted with intelligent, and so to some students, it’s almost as if you are saying that they are not intelligent because they are in the “non-gifted” group. Conversely, students in the gifted group are often expected to do well in school because people now assume they are “intelligent” – so anything less than academic excellence is a disappointment.

I don’t really want to go into a whole discussion of intelligence because that’s not what I want to focus this article on. What I will say is that I am personally a believer in a form of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. I believe that everyone has a distinct combination of different types of intelligence, which is why humanity has been able to produce and do so many different and amazing things.

The test that my school board used to identify gifted students largely rested on analyzing only a student’s logical-mathematical and verbal-linguistic intelligences– and not surprisingly, these are the types of skills that help students do well in traditional school subjects. It’s nice that school boards help develop these particular skills for students highly gifted in those areas, but at the same time, it could also be argued that students who excel in other intelligence areas aren’t receiving equal treatment.

Unfair Expectations From Other Students

One of the backlashes of being identified as gifted were other people’s expectations. And no, I don’t mean my parents – their expectations were already ridiculously high (haha I had to say that because my dad reads this blog). More so, and partly for emotional reasons, expectations were higher (and in a way, unfairly founded) from other fellow students.

These labels created a sort of divide between the gifted and non-gifted students. I don’t mean a really significant divide where the groups segregated (though in some areas, gifted students actually do go to a completely different school every day). I always had friends who were not labelled as gifted in my classes. However, there were times when some students felt hurt by the labels – I mean I can definitely understand, especially at that age, that some students might have taken this to mean they “weren’t smart” or something.

As a result, some of these students started pouncing on a gifted student whenever they made a mistake in the classroom. It was as if they were determined to prove that gifted students weren’t as smart as everyone else thought they were. Whenever I (or another gifted student) got something wrong in class, someone would say: “Wow, how could you get that wrong? I thought you were gifted!” Later on in Grade 8, I remember learning from my gifted program teacher that this was a common occurrence in many schools.

I mean, today as older people with more life experience, we realize that no one is completely infallible to mistakes. But when you are a kid, things are a lot different. And some kids who are identified as gifted may start expecting themselves to never make a mistake. That kind of attitude is really unhealthy, and hopefully, kids from both sides of the fence grow out of it. It really is an unfortunate aspect of the process, and now that I think about it, no one ever did anything to educate the class about what the whole gifted thing was.

I Started to Fear Making Mistakes

I don’t like being humiliated or embarrassed, so when I noticed that other students started pouncing whenever I made a mistake, I started to get a bit scared. I didn’t like being teased like that. But to be fair, it was probably partly because I had an ego. I liked having the image that I was “smart” or something, I thought it was pretty cool.

The problem with that mindset and that environment is that it produces a child who is scared to make mistakes – I became such a kid. Subsequently, in class, I would rarely put up my hand unless I was 100% sure of the answer. I even remember a few times when I did put up my hand, but some other student was called first and gave an answer completely different from mine. When I heard the teacher say that student was correct, I would think to myself, “boy, I’m glad the teacher didn’t pick me to answer. It would’ve been so embarrassing if I had gotten that wrong!”

This mentality extended far beyond just answering questions in class. Whenever some event was happening (like say a school show) and the host would ask someone to come up and volunteer for something, I would never, ever volunteer. I didn’t want to mess up. I didn’t want to look stupid in front of everyone else.

There’s Nothing Wrong with Being Wrong

And so for several years in my childhood, I had this unhealthy attitude of keeping a perfect image because I feared being teased – and later that turned into the fear of making mistakes and looking foolish. I never realized that by not trying, I was preventing myself from being in a position to succeed. And by not trying, I am preventing myself from learning from mistakes.

If there’s anything I have learned about myself, it’s that I learn best by taking shots and making my own mistakes. I mean no one gets on a bike and rides perfectly their first time (okay okay I’m sure you did this, I’m so jealous). But really, for most of us, it takes time, effort, and mistakes. A lot of the time I will know something is wrong, but I really can’t internalize it until I make the mistake. By committing the mistake, I have the painful consequences of that mistake so ingrained in memory that I never let it happen again.

To be frank, I still have the fear of making mistakes in public and looking like an idiot. Even though I know I shouldn’t and I finally understand where it stems from, it’s still there. Sometimes when my friends want to try a new activity, I am reluctant about taking part because I don’t want to look like the fool who is out of place and inexperienced. Part of it is also because I am impatient and I hate failing – not a good combination for trying to learn something new from scratch! It’s something I still struggle with, but am hoping I will continue to overcome.

Related posts:

1. Reflection on 1st Week of Medical School I woke up at 7:50am on this beautiful Saturday morning...
2. What’s up with premed altruism and nobility? As I have mentioned many times before, I feel like...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As a chemistry peer tutor for my past two years in university, I have had the opportunity to not only meet and mentor some really interesting students, but I have also been able to hear about how the first year science classes have been going on a regular basis. For one of this semester’s first year chemistry classes, the average on the first test was ~30% – I heard similar numbers for last year’s class.

Although I can’t remember if the class average for my first university chemistry test was that low, the average was supposedly a failing grade. So you can imagine what the impact of those types of results is like, especially considering that for many first year science students, this is the very first university test that they take. It can be quite the confidence crusher to go from a 90+ chemistry mark in high school to a failing grade on your very first university test.

I can still remember my own first university chemistry test, so much so that I could probably regurgitate the gist of the six problems we were asked to solve. I remember them pretty clearly because I recall reflecting about that test, and particularly, how and why it was different from my high school tests.

There were subtle differences – like the fact that lectures actually mattered (however, this tends to be more true for some university courses and less true for others). Two of the questions on my chemistry test were based on information taught in lecture but not available in the textbook. In my high school, there was never information or concepts taught only in class but not available in the textbook (you’ll find that professors have much more flexibility in terms of what they can choose to teach in university). However, this on its own is not that big of a deal – just go to class more if you didn’t the first time around. Another difference you will find is that there is significantly more material to cover in university than in high school, but I will address that topic in a future part of this series.

Yet there was one question in particular on the test that many students got wrong, which made me realize what the difference between high school and university science was; it’s a difference I have continued to notice in many of my university science courses. All our professor did was take a certain problem type but turn it backwards; that is, he took a problem type he went over in lecture and simply asked us to solve it in reverse. It was kind of like being taught how to determine the force due to gravity on an object in class, and now being given the force due to gravity and asked to find the mass of the original object on the test. Obviously the question was a bit longer than that, but the general idea was the same.

University: Learning How to Think

What happened was that students were so accustomed to knowing all of the problem types, that when a slightly different problem type was presented, a lot of students were lost. That is, while we were taught both important facts and certain chemistry problem types, we weren’t really being taught how to think about chemistry.

When I use the phrase “how to think”, I’m referring to being able to think critically and logically about a subject, and therefore, being able to do things like problem solve about a subject. In university science, you can’t get away anymore with just memorizing the problem types from the text book or lecture. You need to learn how to think more deeply about the subject. Just because you get all the practice problems correct, does not necessarily mean you really know how to really think about a subject. Being able to pick up and memorize patterns for solving certain problem types may help you do your homework, but may not help when you are facing situations that you have never seen before.

In university science, you’re going to be given some problem types that you’ll partly have to figure out on the test/exam for the first time. The students who have developed the critical thinking skills that allow them to think more deeply about the subject will be able to answer more of the questions. On the other hand, the students who just do what worked in high school (i.e. completed all the practice questions but do not necessarily know how to think critically about the material) will not be able to answer some of the questions.

This is why some students with 90%+ high school averages have experienced a significant drop in marks in university science while others have not. In most high schools, you did not need to know how to think critically about your subjects, so anyone who figured out how to memorize all of the facts and problem types was able to do pretty well. However, the need to be able to think critically and logically is amplified in university science right away.

Problem: Even in University, Learning How to Think About a Subject is Not Really Taught

As it turns out, at least in my experience, the teaching style in university science is not very different from high school science. Professors still only teach facts and problem types. If professors really taught you how to think critically about the subjects, then many more people would be acing tests. In fact, it’s almost as if professors expect you to be able to think critically about a subject, even though they don’t explicitly teach problem solving, critical thinking, logic, or anything like that.

That’s weird, isn’t it? It seems as if professors are only responsible for teaching you the facts and problem types. If you tried to argue that this is unfair, someone might point to the fact that there are always students who ace the test, and therefore, all of the necessary material was taught properly. However, the reality is that while there are always a few students who have already developed pretty good critical thinking and problem solving skills on their own and thus do well, the vast majority of students are left in the dark.

So what regularly happens is that the small percentage of students who already know how to think critically and problem solve about the subject will do well, and apparently it’s just “too bad” for everyone else – it is as if students are expected to know how to think critically and problem solve, even though that is one of the more difficult skills to develop, and it’s not ever really taught well in our education system.

Am I saying it’s the university’s fault? Not entirely – I think it would be nearly impossible for a professor on his or her own to teach critical thinking and problem solving to a class in the hundreds. These are skills that need to be developed through personal thinking, small group discussion, and practice. Your professor can’t just lecture and give you these skills. On the other hand, it is not like universities ever provide any sort of support for the development of these types of skills. Then there are the debates of whether the development of such skills are important in the first place, at what age these skills should be encouraged, and what methods of doing so are appropriate. I am sure there are people who would disagree with me and believe that the education system is doing enough of these things, but I would point to the results and respectfully disagree.

Example: Understanding Logical Relationships

A lot of students have asked me to try and elaborate more on the ideas of critical thinking and problem solving, particularly in terms of tackling university courses. If I were asked to define it, my view would be that critical thinking involves making decisions/judgments and solving problems through logical, objective analysis. The bigger, more important idea is that critical thinking skills can be applied to and is important for almost any discipline, whether it is related to a school course or real world situations. The reason why some students are able to consistently do well on all of their school courses is not because they are naturally better chemists, physicists or biologists – it’s because they have developed the critical thinking skills that allow them to better tackle the types of problems they face in those courses.

Developing critical thinking skills requires you to be an active thinker, not a passive one. When you are in class mindlessly writing down what your professor says without ever questioning the merit of his or her arguments, you are not actively thinking – you are just assuming. To be able to think critically about ideas, concepts, and overall subjects, you need to actively question the things you are being taught: Do the ideas make sense? Why or why not?

Right now, as you read my articles, are you just assuming the ideas I propose are logically sound? How do you know my reasoning isn’t bad?

Overall, this is a pretty complex topic because developing these skills relies more on personal thinking, group discussion, and practice than anything else – so it is almost impossible to help you directly develop and improve these skills by writing an article. But maybe I can give a decent example to shed some more light.

One of the important critical thinking concepts you need to understand for doing well on tests is being able to understand relationships between things, and subsequently derive new ideas from these relationships.

For example, in physics you are taught that force = mass x acceleration. You are also taught that momentum = mass x velocity. Then on the test you might be asked to derive that momentum = force x time.

For things like first year physics where you get to work with equations, that might seem like an easy example. But this concept is no different form understanding relationships in biology and chemistry. Just realize that all of these relationships are logical. Let’s look at such a situation on a biology test.

Example university biology test question: Let’s say there is a biological pathway where consuming drug X causes the body to release hormone B. The release of hormone B causes the body to produce more of chemical Z. Assuming drug X has just been consumed, which if the following would be the fastest way to prevent the production of chemical Z?

Possible Answers:

• A: Consume drug A which makes drug X inactive.
• B: Consume drug B which makes drug X inactive.
• C: Consume drug C which eliminates excess hormone B.
• D: Consume drug D which eliminates excess hormone B.

Let’s say that from your studies, you know that drug A acts faster than drug B, and that drug C acts faster than drug D. From this information we can deduce that the answer is A or C.

Since the question wants the fastest way to stop the production of chemical Z, it makes sense to pick the drug which creates a hole in the earliest part of the pathway. So the answer is A, since inactivating the drug will prevent the pathway from occurring in the first place.

So as you can see, in this example, you had all the necessary information at your finger tips (assuming you studied). You just needed to understand the relationships between the items and ideas presented, and use logic and common sense to deduce the best answer.

So How Do You Learn “How to Think”?

The above was an example of what knowing “how to think” is about. If stuff like this is foreign to you, and you really want to improve your critical thinking skills, you just need to practice – and I don’t just mean in the school environment.

Anytime you see something interesting, try and ask questions about it, and practice creating logical answers/arguments. For example, let’s say your favourite sports team just made a big trade: Can you come up with logical arguments for why they made the trade? Is the trade good for either team? What would a better trade have been and why?

Or say you see a new business open up around the corner. Ask yourself: Who is their target market? Is this an ideal location given their market? Would this business be profitable, why or why not?

Even better than this is to do these types of things with a small group of friends. And then continue to ask questions, think, and debate with your friends in the same manner when working on your homework and preparing for tests.

One of the reasons I have been successful my university courses is because I have a small group of friends who I can discuss and debate with for questions or ideas I am struggling with. Sometimes it is really helpful to see other perspectives and learn different ways to approach a problem.

Being able to problem solve, think critically, and attack situations logically are extremely important skills. Pick any career or life situation, and these skills are absolutely invaluable. Not only will it help you solve many problems and make better decisions, it will help you understand new things faster and better!

Part 3 – Lectures, Readings, Note Taking, and Forming Study Groups >>

• Part 1: The Jump from High School to University
• Part 2: How to Think
• Part 3: Lectures, Readings, Note Taking, and Forming Study Groups
• Part 4: Studying for Tests
• Part 5: The Art of Test-Taking

Related posts:

1. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...
2. May to May – a year in the pursuit of happiness Sometimes people ask me what my goals are in life,...
3. So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average” Looks like I started a trend with the very last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When it comes to the transition from high school to university, an oft-quoted line is that “student averages tend to drop about 10-15%”. Looking at the basic numbers, this initially seems to be a pretty fair statement. For example, at York University, you need at least a mid to high 70s average to receive admission to one of its science programs, such as Biology (e.g. 77+ or so).

Considering several factors, such as the fact that fewer students probably got a 90+ average than the number of students who achieved a 77-89 average, it is probably safe to assume that if we computed the average of the final high school grades for a first year York science class, the number would be around 85. And I would imagine that most first year university science classes are made of students with similar high school marks.

Looking at the first year university science courses I have taken so far, the class averages have generally been around the ~65 mark, so it seems that on average, student marks do drop about 15%, and possibly more in some cases.

However, keep in mind this doesn’t mean that all students tend to drop 10-15% in their course marks; it just means that on average, students seem to achieve lower marks than they did in high school. Initially this seems to make sense: if a university class still needs to maintain a class average of 65, then obviously an entering class with high school averages of 85 should see a drop. As a matter of fact, however, the issue is much deeper and complex than this.

Consider the fact that there are actually some students who do better in university science than in high school. There are also some students, unfortunately, who do worse. And there are students who do about the same.

Moreover, there isn’t an obvious correlation between high school marks and university marks. For example, I know a student with a 95 high school average who now maintains a mid-80′s average in university, and can’t seem to break the 90 barrier. On the other hand, I know another student with a 95 high school average who completed first year university science with an even higher average. Myself, I had about a 94 final high school average and my first year university average was somewhere close to that.

NOTE: Universities generally use a GPA system which does not involve the averaging of numerical grades – rather, each numerical grade for a course is first converted to a value on the GPA scale, and these GPA values are then averaged. I’m just trying to make a point with my previous few statements.

Clearly, at least for science programs, the transition between years within high school (where students maintain the same type of marks) is very different from the transition from high school to university.

The Simple Reason: Marks, Difficulty, and General Academic Program Delivery Vary from School to School

Of course, we can try and explain this through the simple and obvious reason that no two schools are alike in their difficulty and education style, and so it should not come as a surprise that high school marks vary widely across Canada. As I have mentioned in a previous article, I am sure that my final high school marks would vary quite widely depending on which high school I attended.

This is partly the reason why some students’ marks tend to change when they enter university. At a university, the programs are composed of students coming from a variety of high school backgrounds, and therefore, a variety of educational experiences. Your high school marks become sort of irrelevant in university since you are no longer being evaluated in the same way you were before. The skills that you relied on to obtain a high average in high school may or may not be what works for achieving a high average in university. As a result, you will often see a pair of students with identical high school marks achieving very different marks in university.

Particularly for the science stream, I believe there is a clear difference between the skill set required to succeed at university compared to the skills needed to excel at high school. The bigger problem, however, is that in my opinion, these skills are actually never really taught.

High School: Memorizing Problem Types

While there are probably some high school science programs that are exceptions, for the most part, high school science can be mastered with a strong work ethic. All that you’re taught in high school are specific facts and problem types (both how to identify them and solve them). Essentially, all you need to do is memorize all the possible problem types, correctly identify those problem types on the tests/exams, and then regurgitate the answer to them. Any other types of questions you’re asked to solve simply require regurgitation of facts you needed to memorize.

Facts are exactly what they sound like; a bunch of statements you are supposed to know and memorize. For example, high school biology is full of facts you are expected to store in your head, such as “herbivores are organisms which mainly consume autotrophs” and other things like that.

But what are problem types? Problem types are simply specific types of questions or problems you are taught to solve. For example, finding the derivation of the function y = x2 in mathematics is a problem type. In physics, being able to find the net force acting on an object given its mass and acceleration is also a problem type.

Throughout high school science courses (primarily chemistry and physics), you are taught to memorize how to do specific problem types. Almost every problem you see on a test or exam is a problem type you’ve covered in class or the textbook. The numbers used in the questions might be different, but the problem type is usually almost exactly like something you have covered before. As long as you have memorized how to do these problem types, you should be able to ace your tests and exams.

The problem with focusing on memorizing problem types is that you do not have to understand how they work to use them effectively and properly. On your high school calculus test, you not need to understand what a derivative is or even means to correctly apply the power rule to a function. On your chemistry exam, you do not even need to know what an ideal gas is to plug numbers into the Ideal Gas Law and solve for a multitude of variables. And even if you are asked what an ideal gas is, all you need to do is memorize its definition from the glossary and write that down, regardless if you actually understand what it means.

The reason that some students ace high school science while other students struggle isn’t necessarily because the top students understand science better in the first place (whether they do or not isn’t that significant a factor). The only thing we know for sure is that the students doing well are better at or have devoted more time to memorizing problem types and facts, and are skillful at recalling them on tests and exams. There are of course the occasional exceptions on some tests or even some entire school science programs, but I believe this is generally true for most high schools.

Why am I concerned with this?

There are both short-term and long-term problems with an education focused on memorizing facts and problem types. The short-term problem is that while memorizing facts and problem types is still necessary for university science, they are not the only or defining skills required – this explains the “jump” from high school to university science. High school students simply are not completely prepared to handle all of the types of test questions in university science.

The long-term problem is that the skill of memorization is what’s being emphasized, and in my opinion, memorization is one of the least important skills in the long run. The difficult problems we face in our world today and in the near future cannot be solved by simply looking up a problem type in a textbook – it is always much more complicated than that. If this is true, then why does our science education emphasize memorization of problem types and solutions more than questioning, thinking, and discussion?

Throughout your life, parents, teachers and other individuals have told you that “understanding is more important than memorization”. If this is true (which I think it is), then why isn’t understanding really being taught in schools? Some people will say that I’m wrong and that it is taught in schools, but if that’s true, then why is the jump from high school to university science as big as it is? Why do so many students who did just fine in high school science now start struggling in university science?

Part 2: How to Think >>

* * * * * * * * * *

Read the other parts of the How I Aced First Year University Science series here:

• Part 1: The Jump from High School to University
• Part 2: How to Think
• Part 3: Lectures, Readings, Note Taking, and Forming Study Groups
• Part 4: Studying for Tests
• Part 5: The Art of Test-Taking

Related posts:

1. So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average” Looks like I started a trend with the very last...
2. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...
3. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

At first, I was like: “lol what? No way!”

So she told me that a friend of hers found this article that suggested it, and that this friend was starting to worry a bit because she wanted to apply to McMaster’s Health Sciences program but didn’t have a 98+ average.

You can find the article, published in the Toronto Star, here.

For those of you who haven’t heard of McMaster’s Health Sciences program, it is a highly competitive undergraduate program for students interested in health, wellness, and illnesses. As the article and the program’s website mention, it is pretty unique, in that they focus more on collaborative, self-directed, and problem-based learning, unlike traditional undergraduate programs in similar fields. It sounds pretty cool, and I actually got accepted into this program back in Grade 12, but I decided not to go for a variety of reasons.

Now, for the most part, nothing the article says is technically wrong or untrue. However, the problem I have is that the article presents the facts in such a manner that it implies several ideas that I believe are highly unlikely to be correct.

This is one of the reasons why the general news media irritates me sometimes – they can take a few facts, and either intentionally or misguidedly, present them in a way to stir up reactions and create controversy, often misleading the readers. That isn’t reporting the truth (which is what the news should be doing in my opinion), it’s taking the truth and presenting it in a way that sells.

To be fair, the middle chunk of the article is fine, in my opinion. It’s pretty much the first few paragraphs, and the last line, that imply things that are probably wrong. So I’d like to go through these parts of the article, and debunk some of the implicit ideas I feel are very misleading, and should definitely be cleared up for any students interested in this program.

She had a 96-per-cent average in Grade 12 and was the top student in her entire school board.

But she still didn’t make the cut for McMaster’s Health Sciences program.

What began as a degree with a unique way of teaching undergraduate students eight years ago has turned into the hottest program around, with 3,500 applications for 160 spots each year.

It’s also a program that’s unique to North America, with an approach to learning that’s quite unusual for undergraduate students.

“We have a very difficult time selecting students to begin with,” acknowledges Delsworth Harnish, assistant dean of the honours Bachelor of Health Sciences program.

“By the time is all said and done, we have rejected students with 96 and 95 (averages).”

Several of the top students in Greater Toronto boards were accepted to the program for this fall, with averages of 98 or 99 per cent.

After reading this introduction, I could see why Eden’s friend was concerned that you needed a 98+ average to get into this program. I mean, look at the way things are phrased. The author starts off by saying that the top student in a certain school board with a 96 average couldn’t get in, and ends off this section implying that the only students he/she knows of that got in from the Toronto boards were the top students with a 98+ average. Also, look at the neatly thrown in line about how McMaster’s program admits that they have rejected students with 95-96 averages.

With phrasing like this, how could a lot of younger high school students not believe that you need a 98+ average to get in?

One of the important things everyone needs to learn is to examine what you read carefully, and be cautious about who you get your information from. The article never said that students with lower than 98 averages don’t get in – they had a sample size of one student with a 96 average that didn’t get in. Sorry, but a sample size of one is not and should not be convincing.

If you read even closer, you’ll notice that McMaster’s representative did not say that all students with 95-95 averages got rejected – he or she simply said that there were such students who were rejected. And I’m sure that there were also students with 91 averages or 99 averages that didn’t get in either – of course, the article fails to mention this obvious possibility – I wonder why…?

What I find pretty funny is that after this really sensationalist opening, they mention just a tiny paragraph about the supplementary application that is also required to apply to this program – which is kind of ironic, considering that several Health Science students I’ve met have stated that the supplementary application plays a much more significant role than the marks, once you meet the cutoff of about ~90.

And even if you don’t believe this is true, here are some reasons why it is extremely unlikely that you would need a 98+ average to get into McMaster Health Sciences:

1. The class would not be filled. Think about it. How many graduating high school students across Canada are there who have 98+ averages AND have McMaster Health Sciences as their first choice? The number of students who satisfy both criteria are extremely low, to the point where having the supplementary application would likely not be necessary – yet the comprehensive supplementary application still exists.
2. High school averages vary widely across Canada. I am pretty sure that if I had attended every single high school in Canada, my graduating marks would vary pretty widely. I think that depending on my the school, my high school graduating average would vary anywhere from 90-100. It is a simple fact that some high schools are probably easier than others. This is why major scholarships only require a 90+ average – universities and private organizations understand that high school marks come with a lot of variance, and so using higher academic standards would be pretty unfair. I am sure McMaster realizes the same thing, which is why they state the cutoff for their Health Sciences program every year to be around a 90 average, depending on the applicant pool for that year.

Finally, I have beef with the final line of the article, and in particular, with the bolded part:

Medical schools do like the Mac graduates: about 60 to 65 per cent of them get into a medical school, and of the roughly 35 per cent who don’t, they often go into law, psychology or health policy.

There are lots of parents and students who believe this same idea, that going to McMaster Health Sciences gives you a significant advantage in getting into medical school. They have this idea that medical schools give preference to McMaster Health Science students.

The problem here is a concept that I like to call screening bias (there is probably a scientific term for this, but I’ve never actually looked it up). Whenever a highly selective university or extracurricular program boasts about the success and accomplishments of their students after leaving the program, one important question you must ask is: Did the program really give the students tools for success, or would the students have been just as successful anyways – considering they were already the “cream of the crop”?

I mean, think about it. The students who get into McMaster Health Sciences, have competitive enough marks, and write essay answers well enough to have been able to beat out 3000+ other students to get in. Are they not likely to be significantly better than the average student in the medical school application process? They are more likely to be better students (grades-wise), are more likely to be actively involved outside of academics, and are more likely to be able to present themselves better on essays. Regardless of how good the Health Sciences program is, statistically, their students should do significantly better than average than the typical medical school applicant anyways.

Now, that’s not to say that the Health Sciences program itself does not improve your chances of getting into medical school – I personally think it does a bit, but not for the reason of the school’s reputation (hint: medical schools openly declare they do not care which undergraduate institution or program you attended). I think that the Health Sciences use of problem-based learning, collaborative learning, and self-directed learning helps the students learn certain skills that are attractive to medical schools (which often use these same skills). At the same time, I doubt this icing on the cake plays a significant role in the medical school admissions process, if at all.

So the next time you read some really sensationalist thing in the media, that sounds crazy, you might want to look at it a bit closer, and do your own research and thinking. Or better yet, contact the people who are actually experts in the material being discussed. Go straight to the source.

Related posts:

1. So This is What It’s Like to be “Below Average” Looks like I started a trend with the very last...
2. Medical School Week 2 Reflection Courses I realized I probably never actually explained how medical...
3. Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine Disclaimer: I will be a University of Toronto medical student...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When people hear the word “teacher”, they often imagine a school teacher standing at the front of the classroom or a professor lecturing in a large university hall. Personally, I have a much broader interpretation of the word “teacher” to also include mentors, coaches, speakers, and so on.

What is a Teacher Really?

I think a teacher is anyone who imparts any knowledge or lesson on you, regardless of the content. Your parents are teachers when they teach you the personal values you have come to hold. Your sister is your teacher when she helps you with that homework problem you just can’t figure out. Your hockey coach is your teacher when he shows you that new puck handling technique.

When I say that anyone can be a teacher, that includes you. If you have experience or expertise in a particular field, be it academic or not, you have the necessary background to teach someone. At the same time, just because you can teach something, does not mean you would necessarily be good at it – an idea we will touch on later in this article.

Teachers of all types play significant roles in our lives. We may often assume that it is the student who can only benefit from this relationship. The teacher already has this knowledge or skill, and the student is the one learning; therefore, it follows that it is the student who mainly gains, right?

The Teacher Often Benefits More

On the contrary, I think that often times, the teacher or mentor benefits much more than the student. As someone who has experienced a variety of teaching roles – including tutoring, speaking, coaching, and mentoring – I feel that I actually gain just as much, if not more, from sharing my knowledge and experiences with others. Teaching and mentoring have helped me personally develop in four main ways:

(1) It Forces You to Really Know Your Stuff & Makes Sure You Never Forget

A lot of times, as teachers, we think we always know what we’re talking about, but sometimes that couldn’t be further from the truth. As a student, you’re not really expected to know everything. And although that is probably not a fair expectation for a teacher either, I think it is fair to say that a teacher should know significantly more than a student about the same material.

Unfortunately, teachers and mentors are often older and busier, and due to time, are much removed from the material they are being asked to teach. For instance, you may recall from my article on Autopiloting that I am currently tutoring 1st year chemistry, biology, and mathematics at York University. I took all three of these courses two years ago, and while I still have the capability to handle the material, there are many ideas, concepts, and pieces of knowledge I have forgotten.

A few weeks ago, one student in particular asked me about a chemistry problem that had me completely stumped. I was pretty embarrassed that I couldn’t help her right away, but fortunately I had my handy answer key; it was just a simple concept I completely forgot about! And as embarrassing as it was, it was pretty cool to re-learn some chemistry.

Even though I don’t deal with detailed chemistry anymore in school or anywhere for that matter, having to tutor it forces me to re-learn a lot of key concepts. This is great because it helps keep chemistry a part of me, and solidifies any understanding about it that I may have lost.

While a lot of students in my biology program may have forgotten 1st year chemistry by now, I have the benefit of getting a free education every time I’m asked to teach it!

(2) It Clarifies Your Understanding of Things

Teaching is a lot harder than it looks. In fact, I think we sometimes take teachers for granted. Believe me when I say that explaining ideas and concepts to someone who has no experience in that field is pretty darn difficult.

When we have become a relative expert in something, we often become complacent. We are so accustomed to the material that can often forget the fundamental understanding behind what we’ve learned. Teaching forces us to relive and rethink the fundamental and necessary ideas behind the lesson, which not only enforces our overall understanding of the subject, but also reminds us what we should be teaching students.

Have you ever tried teaching a friend or sibling something, and they ask you “why”, but you just can’t explain it? For example, there are a lot of students who understand the mechanics of solving chemistry problems. As a chemistry tutor, you understand the ideal gas law of PV = nRT, where for simplicity’s sake, we’ll just mention that P is pressure and T is temperature.

And you might tell your student: “As you can see from the equation, if we double the temperature for an ideal gas while keeping the volume constant, the pressure will also double.”

Then your student might ask: “I don’t understand… why would that happen?”

You might say: “Look, it’s a simple equation. If you double a variable on one side, the corresponding variable on the other side must also double.”

But your student might reply: “I get that, but what actually makes the pressure increase? What’s the science behind it?”

Does this sound familiar?

I’m sure many of us have been in this situation before. Because we’ve done the material so much, and particularly the mechanics of it, we often forget the concepts that underlie what we know. While it is true that doubling the temperature would double the pressure, that is not a reason for why this is true. It is easy to forget the underlying science, such as the idea that increasing the temperature will increase the average kinetic energy of the gas particles; this in turn increases the effective collisions of the particles with the container wall, which is an increase in pressure.

If not for students asking us “why” what we say is true, we personally would have no reason to think about it ourselves, or look it up when we don’t remember. That is, teaching forces us to ensure that we really understand the material we are trying to teach. It forces us to clarify concepts that may have left us, because if we don’t, then both we and our students are left in the dark.

(3) It Improves Your Communication Skills

Being good at something does not mean you’d make a good teacher. Being able to do something and being able to teach that skill or idea are two very different things. I’m sure anyone who has been through a post-secondary education will have had that one professor who was obviously a genius in his or her field, but could not convey his or her ideas and material to the students effectively.

How well you know or understand something doesn’t mean anything in teaching unless your students can understand you. Because you understand the material well, it can be frustrating when your explanations seem painfully simple to you, but your student is completely lost. A lot of the time, things seem simple in our heads, yet are difficult to put into words. Teaching forces you to put concepts you’ve learned in a way that makes sense for other people. In essence, it forces you to think about your target audience, and come up with a specific way to convey your ideas in a clear manner.

This skill is priceless, and being able to speak clearly and concisely is helpful in anything you might do in the future. Whether it might be explaining science to a friend, delivering a presentation to your boss, or explaining to your spouse about a story that happened at work – being able to explain ideas in a way that makes sense to any audience will serve you for life.

(4) It Helps You Understand Other People Better

Understanding people is a very complex issue that includes analyzing an individual’s motivations, models of thought, emotions, and many other variables about a person. In my opinion, as social creatures, it is the most important skill for human beings to develop – but arguably the hardest and least realized. I don’t plan on delving into this idea too much in this article (as it would take me a whole series to write), but I want to point out that it is a skill that teaching can help foster.

Realize that true teaching isn’t about just “doing what you’re expected” and hoping that your students just “get it”. This is a problem that I see far too often in our education system. In my opinion, teaching is about finding the best way to connect with your students. It is an ongoing learning process. Every student is different and requires a different form of help – as a teacher, it is up to you to figure out how to best connect with that student.

As a teacher, you need to understand how your student thinks and approaches the material. How is he perceiving what you say? What types of examples would he understand better? Why is he confused? What would a better teaching method be?

By being able to model how your student thinks and approaches problems, you can better tailor your help to your student. You will gain a better idea of what types of mistakes he is making, what types of concepts or skills seem difficult for him to grasp, and most importantly: why. Being able to understand other individuals at this deep a level is invaluable when it comes to anything from conflict resolution to maneuvering an intense business deal. And teaching can help you develop this.

(5) It is Deeply Rewarding on a Human Level

Last spring I attended an event at my university, and ran into a good friend of mine. He is a year younger, and an extremely bright and accomplished young man. A few times through the previous years, he had contacted me for advice on various things, such as scholarship interviews, university applications, and business projects – and he ended up being successful in many of them. He was always very receptive to my ideas, and I really enjoyed helping him out.

At the event, it turned out that we both had another mutual friend there. He started telling our mutual friend about how he viewed me as his mentor, and about all the times I helped him out. It made me really happy and somewhat inspired that he considered me his mentor, even though we had not spoken that often. It was moments like that which reaffirmed why I love to teach and mentor.

It goes to show you that you have no idea about the significant impact your teaching and mentoring can have on other people. In fact, I shouldn’t have been too surprised to hear that he felt so strongly the mentorship, because I have felt the same way myself before.

In a similar fashion, I had a sort of peer mentor during my late years in high school. He was a few years older, and coincidentally, I met him at the same conference that I met the friend I mentored. It was obvious to me that he was absolutely brilliant and that I could learn a lot from him. I would randomly email him whenever I was in a dilemma, and he always provided great and sound advice. He is a Rhodes scholar now, which did not surprise me because if you had asked me before if I knew anyone who should be a Rhodes scholar, his was the only name I would’ve put forward. I don’t believe he would’ve considered himself a mentor to me, but again, it goes to show you the significant impact you can have others as a teacher, even if you don’t realize it.

Teaching: Everyone Gains

Whether it be teaching, mentoring, coaching, or public speaking, you should really give it a shot. It will help clarify your understanding, remind you of important ideas, and improve your communication and interpersonal skills.

But like I said, be warned that it is by no means easy. There will be times where you are frustrated because your message just doesn’t seem to be getting through. Just always remember that figuring out the challenges is what makes the process fun!

Related posts:

1. Clarification of My Last Post So I got this nice email today… Liu, Joshua Paul...
2. So I think I know why my marks have dropped… So I’m happy to say that I passed my Brain...
3. Hidden Luck Luck, variance, randomness – whatever you want to call it,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.