hiya! i’ve heard you talk about bio120 before and ive gotten interested in being in STEM recently and am looking into it but i only took grade 11 biology, should i put it off for another year to focus on my other major while taking grade 11-12 math and chem online? that way when i take bio120 i can also hopefully take more stem related classes in general as well. any advice helps!
heyyo,
this question is an insane coincidence. literally the very last asker was also wondering about taking bio120/bio courses without the high school prereqs. and i answered that question AFTER you submitted this one, so it’s not like you were influenced. wild.
this coincidence is actually super lucky for you, since that other asker let me in on a liiiiittle scoop of super relevant info: it may actually be possible for you to take bio120 right now, before even taking grade 12 bio. the last asker had also only taken grade 11 bio, but they contacted the course coordinators and were able to get permission to enroll anyways. now, i can’t guarantee you anything (so don’t come after me if they reject you…) but i would recommend getting in touch with the bio120 office just to see if they’ll let you in.
as for whether you should take some online high school classes… well that depends on two things: if you wanna take a program in biology, and how many years you have left before you want to graduate.
if you only wanna take bio120 and maybe some other stem courses as electives, then it may not be necessary to take all those high school classes. there ARE some stem courses designed to be taken as electives by people without a science background: eeb214, eeb215, for200, imm250, and nfs284, just to name a few. there’s also a ton of life sci courses that only require bio120 and bio130 as a prereq, so if you can get into those two, you’ll gain access to even more options.
now if you’re interested in a bio minor, i have some really heartbreaking news for you… some of the required classes do require you to take chm135/chm136, which require you to have taken grade 12 chem and math. while you can always go bug the department for special permission, i feel like the odds may not be in your favour if you’re doing a whole program. but hey, prove me wrong and give it a shot.
if you wanna do a MAJOR, my advice is basically the same as if you were doing a minor: probably best to take some high school classes online. however, i do wanna point out that the bio major requires you to take chem classes as part of the program, which the minor does not.
oh, and if you were eyeing a different STEM program entirely (and i just wasted the last 45 minutes… no hard feelings…), you can check out all the details here.
finally, you should also prob consider how much time you want to spend on your degree. if there’s still 3-4 years left until you plan on graduating, you still have plenty of time to take some online courses and push back taking a stem major by a year. if you only have 1-2 years left, though, you could totally take some electives (and maybe a minor) but it would be pretty difficult to do a major.
sorry for this super long-winded essay of a response, i hope that it helped! and that you were able to get through it without falling asleep…
if more questions pop up for you, feel free to flood my inbox.
cheers,
aska