Academic Plans For 2016-2017

Hi, honeys! 

So, I’m extremely honoured to now belong to the Faculty of Life Sciences at McMaster University! It was such a long journey (12 years in high school) and I have just accepted my lovely offer. 

Today, I will talk about my academic plans for the upcoming year, as I’ve made some decisions during Mac’s Open House! 

1. GPA

GPA or grade point average is your overall grade measured on a North-American scale of 4.0.

As you guys know, I’m striving for MedSchool, and in order to be a successful applicant, you must have a competitive GPA of at least 3.7. Here is the approximate scale of conversion between the percentile and GP system:

MedSchools look at the cumulative GPA which consists of all years you’ve been to the university, but if one is applying from the 4th year and onwards, some privileges such as 3 or so lowest grades dropped from the overall GPA. That being said, 3.7 is the lowest I can go in my first year, and I will hopefully greatly improve in my other 2+ years. 

2. Courses

I have fabulous mandatory courses in my program: Cellular and Molecular Biology, Diversity, Evolution and Humanity (Biology), Intro to Psychollogy, Neuroscience and Behaviour, Calculus, and Intro to Physics. I will however have to take other prerequisite courses for MedSchools this year in the form of electives: Med-physics, 2 General Chemistries, Aging and Society(or other social science), and Intro to Health Studies (or other social science). Taking these mandatory subjects and electives will let me choose any major, but I will look into Biochemistry (Biomedical Sciences) and Honours Life Sciences. I will totally make a blog post regarding the overview of all my courses as soon as my 1st month in uni passes. 

3. Clubs 

As soon as the year will start, I will join multiple clubs of my interest, and hopefully, they will not be focused solely on academics, since I’ll have enough of that :) I will look into any volunteering-related clubs, pre-med (academic, though), and the club related to arts and crafts. They will help me with my skill-building and I will also enjoy myself the most being the member of those clubs. 

4. Volunteering

This year I will be a little dormant in terms of volunteering in order to have my focus turned completely on academics, however, I will still participate and help organize any events held by my clubs and I would love to help the university out during next year’s Welcome week. I will also apply for the summer volunteerism in all kinds of hospitals in Toronto and Hamilton starting from January 2017, since being in the hospital and interacting with patients is all I can wish for to have a wonderful summer. 

5. MCAT Studying

I don’t know exactly how my MCAT studying is going to go, but I know for sure that at least half of my prerequisites are going to be covered in the first year. As I will be studying for my subjects, I will also constantly refer to my MCAT reviews by Kaplan in order to take as much as I can from those books. 

I have also decided that I will do co-op during my undergrad, but that’s a topic of another blog post ;)