• current student,  prereqs,  psychology

    psych major questions make a comeback (ft. high school prereqs)

    September 15, 2022

    I have been trying to find an answer to this question everywhere, but it seems like not alot of people have been in this situation. Long story short, I have yet to be accepted into the PSY major (intend to graduate with a double major in PSY + SOC); however, I will complete all the required courses for both programs by December 2022. The issue is, I do not have the HS courses required for the PSY program. Will I still need to complete those to be accepted into program?

    hey there,

    so you’re right, i don’t have experience with this personally — but my guess is that you probably do need to get those hs prereqs. for example, the utm psychology website says, quite emphatically, that hs prereqs are “NEVER waived for any reason”. utsg psychology hasn’t put up any info about waiving hs prerequistes for their programs but seem rather strict about not waiving psy course prerequisites. i haven’t seen much about utsc, but… you get the idea. i’d definitely recommend emailing the psychology department to ask directly and make sure, but the general vibe that i’m getting is that they probably won’t accept you without those prereqs.

    Shrug Really GIFfrom Shrug GIFs

    luckily, missing hs prereqs aren’t all that uncommon (i’m lowkey drawing stuff from this other post with a very similar issue) and if you do need the hs courses, you can take them in summer school or night school with the tdsb, or any other school board that offers it. maybe not the most fun times, but at least you won’t be stuck with that missing prereq forever.

    hope that helps and good luck!

    aska

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  • current student,  FLC,  humanities

    course conFLCs

    September 8, 2022

    I was pre-enrolled in ENG140 for my humanities FLC but I’ve found that it conflicts with a course I need to apply for a program I’m interested in. If I drop ENG140, will I also be removed from the FLC?

    hey there,

    unfortunately i haven’t personally been in a FLC, but according to their website, you are allowed to drop courses that they enrolled in without being removed from the FLC, it seems.

    Sid Seixeiro Sid GIFfrom Sid Seixeiro GIFs

    although, speaking from experience, eng140 is an amazing course, so… tough decisions. either way, you’ll still be able to experience that FLC camraderie without being tied down to the pre-enrolled courses (hooray!). you could also email flc@utoronto.ca directly for any other questions!

    Stromman Excited GIFfrom Stromman GIFs

    good luck! 🙂

    aska

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  • current student,  wait list

    yes, you can be keen even on the waitlist… (jk this question is p valid)

    September 6, 2022

    Hi! I have a question about protocol re. a waitlisted course. I’m an incoming first year, and have been waitlisted for a course. It has a very high drop rate from what I’ve heard, so I’m fairly sure I’ll get in eventually, but probably not immediately. It’s supposed to be difficult and fast moving, so I’m somewhat concerned about playing catch-up. Am I permitted to attend the lectures in the meantime? What should I do about assignments?

    hello young one,

    unfortunately if you’re waitlisted, you won’t get access to the course quercus page, assignments, or online lectures (if any). but if the lectures are taking place in person and are fairly large, nothing’s really stopping you from sitting in. from my experience, most first year lectures are too large for profs to take attendance or notice a few extra students lurking around, and unless things have changed drastically in covid, it’s not like there’ll be bouncers out front trying to check if you’re actually in the course or not.

    Homer Simpson Hiding GIFfrom Homer Simpson GIFs

    you will probably miss a few practicals/tutorial sessions though, if your course has those, and some assignments. usually, you can get in contact with the course coordinator to ask if assignments from before you joined the course could be dropped or replaced with other assignments. some courses also allow you to drop a certain number of assignments without penalty.

    something that could really help is to get your hands on the course syllabus — try to see if you can find a copy floating around on the internet, or make some friends in the course and ask them for some of that insider info — that’ll give you a better idea of the course policies on assignments, topics covered, textbooks and other things you might have missed out on. if in doubt, definitely communicate with the course coordinator and see if you could work something out. btw, your registrar could also help out if you’re having any trouble negotiating things with your prof!

    best of luck!

    aska

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  • current student,  dropping courses,  tuition

    courses, tuition, and google classrooms but not really

    September 2, 2022

    hello first year student here! I haven’t started fall 2022 semester yet and wanted to know if I could drop a course I’m enrolled in without paying the tuition for that course (stupid question but I wanted to make sure). also, is there a website for students to use when professors post class materials and such (like google classroom but not really)?? Thanks!

    hello hello hello!

    so the way that tuition works is a bit weird. if you take 4.0 – 6.0 FCEs (full course equivalents for you newbies) in the fall/winter year, you’ll pay the program fee. so whether you’re taking 4.0 or maxing it out to 6.0, it doesn’t matter, financially — you’d pay the same tuition.

    Patrick Melrose Spending GIFfrom Patrick Melrose GIFs

    if the courses you drop bring you down to 3.5 or less FCEs total, you can pay course fees, which depend on your number of courses, and ends up being cheaper per course. everyone is charged the program fees at first, and the extra amount for students on course fees will be refunded later in the year.

    but be careful: if you are planning to switch from program fees to course fees, make sure to drop your courses by the last date to enrol in them, otherwise, they will still be counted in your total course count. for example, a fall session course has to be dropped by the last day to enrol in F (fall) courses, which is september 21st this year. if you have any concerns or questions about this, definitely check out your registrar for advice because it can be tricky to keep track of all the different dates and how the payments work and everything.

    in terms of the course materials and stuff, yes! it’s called quercus and it literally is google classrooms but not really. uoft just had to get a ~quirky~ name for our whole oaks and acorns theme.

    Treehugger Vegetarian GIFfrom Treehugger GIFs

    i wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve started getting bombarded by email notifications from quercus already but don’t worry if you haven’t, because profs are slow, and you will be hearing from them… soon. 🙂

    best of luck!

    aska

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  • current student,  math,  prereqs,  UTSC

    gr 12 math strikes back

    September 2, 2022

    hi aska! so im going into my first year at utsc, there are some courses that sound really interesting but the pre-reqs for most of them are grade 12 math which i completely avoided taking. is there any way (even if its not this year) that i can ever take the courses?

    hi there and welcome!

    don’t worry, you won’t be doomed because of that pesky prereq, at least not forever. i would recommend first emailing the instructor to ask if you can have the prerequisite waived.

    Russell Please Let Me In GIFfrom Russell GIFs

    some courses allow this, however you will still be responsible for getting caught up on the material, of course. depending on how comfortable you are with learning the math, and whether or not the instructor is allowing waivers for the course in the first place, this may or may not work for you.

    you can also get credit for grade 12 math through tdsb night school (registration is still open i believe) or summer school, which both have remote and in person options. i’m sure other school boards and even private companies offer similar services to get high school credits, too, which you could look into.

    as a disclaimer, i haven’t personally taken night school/summer school courses so i can’t give much of a review, but i’ve heard that they can be more relaxed than their normal school counterparts, which sounds great unless you’re hoping to take a very math-heavy course. if you end up wanting more of a math background, uoft’s math department has the pump program which is a series non-credit summer courses that reviews high school math to prep for university.

    And Thats A Lot Of Math Math GIFfrom And Thats A Lot Of Math GIFs

    i hope that answers your questions, and good luck with all that math!

    aska

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  • courses,  current student,  forensic science,  wait list

    more waitlist woes…

    August 15, 2022

    If there is a waitlist of 40+ people for an fsc course, do you think it’ll be offered in summer? Its fsc316 and it was only offered once in summer in 2021. FSC minors need it too but they only offer a few spots and the majors and specialists take those:(

    hey there,

    first of all, that’s a friggin cool program! although i must admit i had to look up fsc to realize that it wasn’t french (fsl) but actually FORENSIC SCIENCE  like woah.

    to be honest, i don’t really know, but since this course hasn’t really been offered in previous summers, i wouldn’t bank on it happening this year. i mean sure, it might, but that probably depends on a lot of different factors, and just because a course has a long waitlist doesn’t mean they’ll offer more sessions of it.

    No Workaholics GIFfrom No GIFs

    i did do some digging into the fsc minor though, and according to the utm academic calendar, it seems that fsc316 isn’t actually required. i don’t wanna be that guy going ‘ok but do you need that course’, but you might wanna take another look at what exactly is required for your program, in case you could take a different course instead? for example, the utm calendar lists fsc316 as part of list of a bunch of courses, and out of those, you’re supposed to take 0.5 FCEs — so any other half year course on there should do!

    however, if you’ve now developed an emotional attachment to getting into this course — i understand.

    I Need It GIFfrom Dallas Buyers Club GIFs

    assuming you’re in third year right now, so one possible strat is to try getting into the course in your fourth year, since you’ll have higher priority in course selections. that could get tricky though if the course has other types of priority enrolment for specialists/majors etc, so if you’re hoping to go down this route, i’d recommend emailing your department or the course instructor to ask about their process for this. another potential issue is that this may throw a wrench in some of your fourth year course plans, if fsc316 is a prereq for anything else you’re interested in.

    if you do end up really needing the course, i’d also recommend asking your registrar for tips. for example, 4th year arts and science students at utsg get a special lil dean’s promise that we can invoke to get into mandatory courses that are required to graduate, and although i’m not sure if utm has a similar thing, it doesn’t hurt to ask around and see if there’s anything else you could do.

    best of luck!

    aska

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  • current student,  major,  programs

    emailing the program director might make you feel like a karen but it’s ok… just be nice

    August 10, 2022

    hi there! I recently got declined from my major and wanted to try again in the second request period. I was wondering if it was worth emailing the program director to introduce myself and outline reasons to be in the program. Is it worth it and do you think it would help/hurt my chances? Thank youuu

    hey there,

    honestly, you beat me to this — usually i do recommend for people to try emailing their departments about stuff like program admissions or course waitlists, because they’ll be able to give the most accurate answer.

    i really don’t think it’d hurt your chances, as long as you do it in a courteous way. in the best case scenario, it could get the department to take second look at your file and perhaps improve your chances, and in the worst case scenario, you’d get a no, as in, “this doesn’t count, we’re still gonna review your application the normal way”, or no response (fair enough, i’m sure they get a loooot of emails…) but from my experience no one would hold it against you for sending a brief friendly email.

    Harry Potter Letters GIFfrom Harry Potter GIFs

    also, i’m assuming that the major you’re applying to doesn’t have a supplementary application already, so that your email is actually adding something above and beyond. but if it does, you should probably hold off on the email so that you’re not just bombarding the department with multiple versions of “reasons i should get into [insert competitive major]” because, well, they know, or will eventually after reading your application.

    other than that, try to be respectful — and imo, that also includes being respectful of time. a straightforward email describing your interest in the program (you can back this up by mentioning a few relevant future goals/extracurricular involvement) and marks from prereqs will get the point across.

    it might also help to end off on a specific question/concern you might have, like asking for feedback to improve your application, or if there were truly extenuating circumstances (cliche, i know… try “unprecedented times”? “never-before encountered conditions”?) that affected your application, this could be your chance to explain things — not in a guilt-trippy way of course, but more to show that despite all this, you’re still very interested, and would like to know if you still have a chance/what you could do to make up for it, etc.

    anyway, i hope this post has had the effect of helping you in some way (besides making you overthink about email etiquette).

    best of luck!

    aska

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  • 12 distinct credits,  current student,  life science,  programs

    all my homies hate the 12 distinct credits rule

    August 3, 2022

    hi! i ended up switching programs after first year so figuring out requirements has been crazy. i’m aiming for a human bio major with two minors, psych and imm. the issue is that the immunology minor doesn’t have a lot of required classes and almost all of the listed ones are also in the hmb program. how does this work with the distinct courses thing? thank you for any help!

    hey there,

    ok, maybe “hate” is too harsh a word but let’s face it, it’s just confusing.

    i also wanna preface this post by saying i am so sorry for the late response… the blog post backlog has been real, but hopefully this still helps someone out there :’)

    so anyway, back to that pesky 12 distinct credits rule. the whole idea is that your program requirements should add up to at least 12 different FCEs. for example, the human bio major is 8.0 FCEs. if all of the 4.0 FCEs in your imm minor end up overlapping with human bio, then you’d need to make sure to take 4.0 FCEs in your psych minor that are all distinct from your human bio/imm courses — that would get you to 12 distinct credits.

    of course, psych probably also overlaps with human bio/imm/other life sci programs, so it might not be possible to get 12 distinct credits just by meeting the minimum requirements of the programs. for example, even if you take your 8.0 FCEs for human bio and they all overlap with imm, you could take a few more eligible hmb or imm courses beyond the overlapping ones in order to fulfill 12 distinct FCEs for your program courses. alternatively, you could try to enrol in a different combination of programs to make it easier to get those distinct credits.

    Didiojakhi Didiojaxi GIFfrom Didiojakhi GIFs

    i know this all sounds incredibly convoluted, which is probably why utsc has a whole worksheet on the rule. personally, i’ve just planned things out on degree explorer which helps to just lay out all your program courses so that you can count them all up and make sure that they add up to at least 12.0 FCEs total.

    hope that helps!

    aska

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  • current student,  major,  programs

    major changes

    August 2, 2022

    Can you change or decide to double major in your 3rd year?

    hey there,

    yup, speaking from experience, you definitely can. honestly, this is probably one of the most redeeming qualities of POSt (especially for us indecisive students).

    The Good Place Indecisive GIFfrom The Good Place GIFs

    you can switch between programs in the “program change groups” directly on acorn without any application or approval (see the list here), and for other programs you can try to request the change on acorn or contact the department for approval.

    program changes are usually available on acorn in march/april and july/august each year. in fact, this year’s program change deadline is august 23rd, so if you already have a program in mind, you might even be able to get it done this summer!

    of course, the success of your program change may depend on the courses and programs you’ve completed so far, and how related they are to the programs you’re switching into. competitive programs would also still be evaluating you by their POSt criteria.

    anyways, hope this helps. be free! go find the program of your dreams!

    It Is Not Too Late To Change Your Mind Still A Chance GIFfrom It Is Not Too Late To Change Your Mind GIFs

    good luck,

    aska

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  • current student,  OSAP,  UTAPS

    utaps got ur back

    July 25, 2022

    Hello, do you know if my grades impact the amount of UTAPS I could get? Or does UTAPS only look at my OSAP application and financial situation? How do they count the UTAPS amount? Thanks!

    hi there,

    from what i know, utaps is based on your osap application and does not depend on grades. other bursaries/awards might look at your marks, but utaps really is based on need, and typically pays out any amount of your financial need (calculated by the government) that wasn’t covered by osap.

    the one potential exception is if you’re failing a lot of courses. usually, for undergrads, osap requires you to pass 1.5 FCEs per term, or 3.0 FCEs for every two terms. dropping below that would put you on osap probation, which means that if you miss the requirements again in the next year, you’ll be restricted from getting more osap. this could also affect your utaps application, but in this case i think utaps would probably be the least of your concerns… so if this is you (or if you’d just like some more support in general) it’d be best to just get advice from your registrar.

    anyway, enough of the spiraling osap hypotheticals. if you’d still like to read more, here’s some info about osap and utaps, including a utaps estimator.

    good luck, and i hope you get that bag!

    Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes GIFfrom Bugs Bunny GIFs

    aska

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  • courses,  current student,  minor

    a minor issue

    July 5, 2022

    do i have to take every course required for a minor in my first year to be able to declare it?

    hey there,

    probably not. most minors that i know of are open enrolment and only require at least 4.0 FCEs completed by the time you apply. other than that, there are no restrictions on the year that you complete the program courses, as long as you complete them all by the time you graduate. although courses might be 100-level or listed as “first year”, in most cases those are kind of just recommended, not required.

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    some exceptions would be the computer science minor, for example, where students in the CMP1 stream would need to complete the required courses in their first year, but even for out of stream students, there isn’t really any restriction on having to complete courses in a certain year, you’d just need to have them ready by the time you apply for POSt.

    you can search up the minors you’re interested in on the artsci calendar or email the department to see if there are other restrictions.

    hope that helps!

    aska

     

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  • academic offense,  current student

    academic misconduct: second time’s not the charm

    June 25, 2022

    I have been charged for unauthorized coloration during the final exam and got a warning as a result, but a month later, I’ve been charged for the second academic offense because they said they find similarities in my midterm exam in the same course. Is it possible to let them combine this into one case? Because I thought the second offense need to happen after the first offence not before.

    hi there,

    after some digging around, i haven’t been able to find anything on how first vs second offenses are technically defined. it’s possible that your second offense doesn’t necessarily need to have occured after your first offense, it might also be based on the order of when they were noticed by the instructor and reported.

    in any case i don’t think it’s common to combine multiple offenses into one case if these were two separate instances of misconduct. then again, the info i have is mostly limited to the code of conduct published on uoft’s website, and there might be other nitty gritty details i’m not familiar with.

    i’d recommend reaching out to downtown legal services asap as they frequently provide help to uoft students on academic offense cases and will definitely know more about Actual Law Things™ to help you out, including the details on whether this would count as a second offense, and what you can do next.

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    sorry i couldn’t be of more help with the first vs second offense stuff (i do have my limits you know), but if you ever need other support on this or other things you can always reach out to your registrar too, to get one-on-one advising (also anything you share with them won’t be used against you in academic offense cases).

    best of luck,

    aska

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