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What? You need a 98 average to get into McMaster Health Sciences?

Categories: Applying to university

Want more info on McMaster Health Sciences?

Last night, Eden, a good friend of mine, asked me whether you needed a 98+ average to get into McMaster Health Sciences.

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 health science programs. 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.

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The Benefits of Teaching and Mentoring

Categories: Personal Development

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

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To be Successful, You need to Keep Putting Yourself in Position to Succeed

Categories: Personal Development

Whenever we hear about successful people in the newspaper, magazine, television, the Internet, or even directly from other people, we only hear about their success stories. We never hear about their failures, mistakes, or shortcomings. I guess it’s because hearing about other individuals’ successes are positive things, and hey, I’m all for positive things. In fact, learning about the success of other people is one of the things that inspires me the most.

Some people I’ve met have called me successful.

Well, I guess this is sort of true, depending on how you define success. When I was in Grade 8, I achieved a perfect score on the University of Waterloo’s Gauss Mathematics Contest. In my final year of high school, I won the TD Canada Trust Scholarship, selected from a pool of over 3,500 applicants. So sure, if you define stuff like that as successful, then I guess I’ve been successful.

But let’s get things straight. I have been successful in the the things that have worked out for me; you know, the things you have read about me, such as in my biography on this blog. But that isn’t the whole story. And, well, you’ll never really get the whole story. And the truth of the matter is…

I am equally unsuccessful in all of the things I’ve messed up

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I clicked submit last night: turns out I am an idiot

Categories: Life

So I haven’t written much in the last week, primarily because I had been busy finishing my Ontario medical school applications. For those of you who don’t know, it is a pretty lengthy process, requiring an autobiographical sketch listing up to 48 items to describe yourself, a 1,000 word essay for the University of Toronto, and answering five short questions for McMaster University, among other things. It is done through OMSAS: the Ontario Medical School Application Service.

It’s amazing how much your feelings and emotions can change in such a short period of time. Life really is a roller coaster; not only throughout your entire life, but sometimes even within the period of a single day.

I woke up yesterday 11:00 a.m., determined to finish my application and submit it by the afternoon (Note: The application was due today 4:30 pm, so I was not a complete procrastinate for once!). I worked for about 6-7 hours straight, touching up my essays, revising, double-checking everything, etc.etc. After a huge surge of adrenaline, I was finally very happy with what I had produced in terms of my essay answers, as that is probably the hardest part of the application. Considering I hadn’t written things like this since Grade 12, it felt pretty good to get rid of the rustiness and actually let loose.

Success!

So I clicked submit at about 7pm, feeling super happy and relieved that I was not only able to put together an application I was very proud of, I did it with a whole day to spare! So to celebrate, my family took me out for a nice dinner. Yum steak.

Anyways, so I get home maybe two hours or so later, and start randomly reading some premed student forums online (keener much?). And I read this post by a student who was panicking about forgetting to fill out some prerequisite course information for the University of Ottawa. And then I started panicking too. Why? Because I had no idea what he/she was talking about!

Oh Crap…

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How to Start a Youth Group in Your School

Categories: ECs and Volunteering

When I was fifteen, I made a decision that would completely change my life. Inspired by a Report Card on Child Poverty in Toronto, my brother and I decided to start a youth group in our school to tackle child poverty in city. I had never been in a “leadership role” before, so to say that I learned a lot, would be quite the understatement.

That being said, being inexperienced and never having even been in a school club before, we made a lot of mistakes. But that’s okay, because there’s nothing as educational as learning by doing – and that involves making mistakes.

Now I know there are a lot of students out there who might have an idea or an issue important to them, and want to start a youth group or school club, but just don’t know where to start. Hopefully I can help you with that.

What follows is a basic, step-by-step guide to help you set up your own youth group or school club. Hopefully, with this guide, and a bit of passion and confidence, you too can turn your idea or passion into something amazing.

Step 1: Identify an Issue You are Passionate About

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How to Write a Winning Scholarship Essay – Part 4: Revising the Essay

Categories: Scholarships

Congratulations on finishing the most gruelling part of the application process – writing the essay. Although the finish line is in sight, you’re not just done yet. But before we go on any further, there is one very important thing you need to do first.

Take a Break: Come Back in a Day or Two

Yes, you heard me right. Put down your pen. Get off your computer. Go outside, call up some friends, or even grab some homework to do. Whatever you do though, don’t read your essay for at least a day.

Why?

You have just been through a fairly intensive thinking and writing process. At this point, your mind is very exhausted, and it is unlikely you will be able to think straight. Not only do you deserve a break, but you need one. You are not going to be able to revise your essay properly if you’re not in a good state of mind.

In fact, because you have been drilling certain ideas into your head recently, you are going to have a very biased point of view about your essay. Sentences that normally would not make sense to you, all of a sudden appear perfect in your essay. Ideas that would usually clash, now seem to magically flow well. Don’t fall into this trap. Take a break!

Rested? Okay, Let’s Do One Personal Revision

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Stop and Think: Don’t Fall into the Trap of Autopiloting

Categories: Undergrad

A few days ago, I had my first peer tutoring session of the year. Last year I tutored chemistry to first year students, but this year, I am now also tutoring first year biology and mathematics. I love teaching and helping students succeed in general (this blog itself should make that obvious!), and I am really hoping teaching plays some role in my career.

The very first student I tutored this year needed some help with chemistry. She was very enthusiastic, and was obviously keen on learning, which I like a lot. However, I quickly noticed the reason why she was having trouble with the chemistry problems; it was the same thing I have seen many times in numerous students who were not prepared for the jump to university.

I remember one question she asked me in particular. It was a chemistry problem that provided a chemical equation, as well as the mass of one of the reactants (I’m not going to go into too much detail for those of you who have not taken chemistry, because there’s a more important point I want to get across). We read the question together, and then afterwards, she immediately started converting the mass of the reactants to its amount in moles. However, after reading the question again, I realized that the calculation she was doing was pointless; the calculation she was doing was irrelevant to the answer. But she was doing the calculation anyways because she was on autopilot.

What is Autopilot?

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Mastering Interview and Application Questions: The Art of Questioning the Question

Categories: Application, Med Admissions, Scholarships

I was sitting in my Advanced Biochemistry class the other day, and the professor was talking about a well-known scientist (that I can’t remember) who helped pave the way for some very important discoveries in biology. The professor said that the reason why the scientist was so successful was not because he knew all the answers right away, but because he knew the right questions to ask.

Asking the Right Questions

Whenever you are solving any type of problem, the first thing you need to ask yourself is: what is the question really asking? Because if you don’t understand the question, then you’re never going to get the right answer. And the best way to understand a question, is to question the question itself (this sounds kind of tricky, but really it’s not!).

Being able to look at problems by asking the right questions is an important concept that applies to anything, and is something I find particularly useful in my undergraduate life sciences studies. Last year, I began tutoring first year chemistry students as part of the chemistry department’s peer mentoring program. Students would come in with chemistry problems they were having trouble with, and we would help figure them out.

While some of the other tutors just solved the problems for the students in front of them (and granted, that’s all some of the students wanted), I don’t feel this is the best way to help the students. Because if the students knew how to approach correctly, well, they wouldn’t need to be asking for help in the first place. So in general, I don’t like just solving the problems for them. What I try to do is guide them through the process of answering the question, and I do so by asking them questions. I ask them the questions they should be asking themselves while doing the problem.

I ask the students things like: What is the question asking us to figure out by the end? What information do we need to figure that out? Okay, so once we have that information, how do we get to the next step? etc. etc. When I do this, my hope is that the students retain this questioning method of problem solving. At some point, when this process becomes ingrained in you, you don’t really think about the questions consciously while say doing a test, but it’s essentially what you are doing while problem solving.

So What are the Right Questions to Ask when Approaching Interview and Application Questions?

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How to Write a Winning Scholarship Essay – Part 3: Writing the Essay

Categories: Scholarships

At this point, you should know what you are going to write. That is, you should have completed the outline for your essay which includes all the information and ideas you want to get across to the scholarship judges: what you have achieved, the lessons you’ve learned, how you got started, etc.

In this article, I am going to walk you through some important concepts on how to put these ideas into the form of an essay in the best way possible. One thing I am NOT going to do is write the essay for you. If you came here expecting to see complete sample essays, then you’re in the wrong place. What I’m trying to do is teach you how to write your essay, and hopefully by the end of the article, you’ll realize why understanding these concepts is much more valuable than me simply giving you a template essay to use.

Don’t Write an Essay. Write Your Story.

Although we always use terms like “scholarship essays” or “essay answers”, realize that you’re not writing a formal essay for your history class. Think of your scholarship essay of more like a story. Your story.

Imagine you were writing a novel about yourself and your leadership/community experiences: what would you say? How would you say it?

There are a few reasons why you should write your scholarship essay as if you are telling a story, but the primary reason is because it helps you stand out. Scholarship judges must go through hundreds or thousands of application essays. Formal essays are not exciting by nature – but stories are. You want your scholarship judge, in the heap of a hundred boring formal essay answers, to be excited by something interesting for once: your story.

Think of your essay like a movie or a novel, where you are the hero in the story: a hero with a mission. Through your story, you want to convince the reader (the scholarship judge) to be on your side. It’s kind of like sports. Have you ever watched your favourite team compete in a championship game? How did you feel? What emotions went through you as you cheered for your team? That’s the feeling you want the judges to have about you.

By the end of the essay, you want the judge to be cheering for you, to want you to succeed. You want the judge to put down your application and think: “Wow, I need to meet this person!”

Write in the First Person

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Things Are Slowing Down…

Categories: Life

University life is starting to take its toll a bit. Between classes and the time it takes for transportation, I feel like there’s not very much time left each day. It also doesn’t help that I have morning classes, and well I’m not a morning person, so I don’t get enough sleep everyday and wind up very tired at the end of the day.

So if I was awake I would definitely have time to write a few things, but I don’t write particularly well when I’m tired (who does?), and I think the readers deserve more than some tired attempt if I’m trying to provide something useful!

I appreciate all the comments so far from everyone. You are all very kind, and I appreciate that, as well as all your suggestions for future topics.

I’m looking to have How to Write a Winning Scholarship Essay Part 3: Writing the Essay up by this Friday evening.

Also, with the release of the Loran Award Application and the TD Scholarship deadlines coming up soon, I would like to have an article up soon for advice for each of those particular applications.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about applying to universities, which programs to select, etc. so I will be trying to get some good articles up about that in October/November, since I know those of you graduating will need to be making some crucial decisions soon.

Hope everyone’s first week of school went well!