• career choice,  science

    jobs???

    what can I do with a major in biology and chemistry, in terms of available jobs?

    ———————————————

    Hey there,

    Here’s the thing. You can do anything with your university degree if you’re crafty enough. I hate to sound like a crotchety old whiner, but it’s getting harder and harder these days for university graduates to get jobs, and that means that people have to be increasingly creative in getting jobs. You can’t limit yourself to a set number of possibilities, because it’s very likely that you’ll have to apply for jobs radically outside the realm of those possibilities, and sooner than you might expect.

    HOWEVER! It’s still good to explore your options and see what you’re interested in, and do your darn best to try and get into those careers that you’re excited about. So here’s a very modest list of possible paths you can take after getting a degree in bio and chem:

    1. Medical jobs, including but not limited to: doctor, pharmacist, nurse, dentist, veterinarian, health policy developer, nutritionist, occupational therapist, bioethicist…the list goes on. I should note that all of these require a professional or graduate degree. You can browse all the graduate programs at uoft here.

    2. Research. Typically done in a lab. Erlenmeyer flasks, very fancy and expensive pipettes; that sort of thing. Obviously, a Ph.D. (or an M.Sc. at the very least) is necessary if you’re interested in this.

    3. Teaching. And if you pull the whole “those who can’t do, teach,” thing, EVEN IN YOUR MIND, my spirit will show up personally to your house tonight and PUMMEL you while you SLEEP.

    4. If staying in school and getting another degree isn’t really your thing, and you’re adamant about getting a job in science, then a B.Sc.-holder can always become a research technician/technologist. Info about being a research technician with the Canadian government here.

    As you can see, the vast majority of high-paying jobs listed here (and even some of the not so high-paying ones) require additional degrees or college certifications. This is one of the reasons that I’m so impatient with the whole “B.A.s are useless!” mentality. Sure they are, but they’re not that much more useless than any other Bachelor’s degree in Canada.*

    So, what to do? Well, like I said, you can be creative – you can accept that your career might not lie in science, and start looking at any and all jobs that will take you (retail, executive assistant, etc.). Or, if bio/chem is really the one thing you want to pursue, you can look into some of these graduate/professional degrees and further certifications.

    Would you like some sugar with which to swallow that bitter pill?

    I hope that was helpful and that you are not too discouraged! Don’t worry: worst comes to worst, I can always sublet you my spare cardboard box on spadina. Just for you, friend. I’ll even throw in some spare newspapers.

    Best,

    aska

    *In other countries, it’s a different situation. For example, did you know that in England, you can become a certified lawyer with just a first-entry, 3-year undergraduate degree? I know. I hate them too. Although, would you really want a 21-year-old representing you in a court of law? Food for thought.

  • subject POST,  UTM

    and throw polly gee

    Hi,

    I’m minoring in Anthropology (Arts) which requires a 1.0 credit prerequisite from a selection of 2nd year social science or science ANT courses. Currently, I’m taking ANT206 this semester, which will hopefully leave me with 0.5 credits to complete. I’m considering summer school, but there is only one SSc course being offered (ANT204) and the rest are all SCI (which I loath). ANT207 is a SSc course I would prefer to take over ANT204, but it’s not offered in the summer and is only available in the next school year. What happens if I don’t take summer school and complete the rest of this prerequisite in 3rd instead? Will it have any affect on my subject POSts? Thanks!?

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    the answer lies in rethinking the question, padawan. by and large, the school doesn’t look at when you take courses, unless it has to do with prerequisites. so it’s not about whether you take 1.0 of those courses in your second year of university, it’s about whether you complete 1.0 ANT2** courses by graduation. so you should be able to take them whenever, really, as long as you fulfil all the requirements by graduation. I get that your POSt description is like, super ambiguous (smh utm), but that is generally the rule.

    now doesn’t that make you feel better? the sun came out and is shining just for you, m’dear.*

    best,

    aska

    *although i’ve heard that there is supposed to be a snowstorm tonight, so maybe the weather doesn’t care at all about your life and is just being the moody, inconsiderate teenager it always has been.

  • plagiarism

    ohai OSAI

    Hi there,

    I’m a struggling second year student and something came up with one of my courses that has to be dealt with OSAI. This has been affecting my outlook on university and all my other courses. It has been what occupies my brain all this time. It has been messing with my thoughts and my activities. I don’t want to say I’m depressed because I’m really to get to class but i feel like something triggers the though every time and it gets me really low. I just want to know if there’s any place or someone I could freely talk to about my position in campus. I’m at that stage in which I want to drop everything and leave although there’s only a month left of school. Pls help me out. I’ve been holding all my fears in and I’m really scared thanks

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    alright friends, this is a PSA: you are always free to come HERE and talk about any and all thoughts you may be having about school. aska’s about as low-key as it gets on this campus, so if you ever feel like talking something out or just need to vent, and you really want to do it with someone who will be mostly useless but will link to some hilarious and appropriate gifs – you’re always welcome here. we can jive together in this super-rad internet space.

    that said, i understand that this low-budget, virtual equivalent of a run-down cafe with a bossy barista might not always cut it, so let’s look at some other options.

    first, i know it’s hard to have perspective on this, but you’ve got a lot of stuff weighing you down right now, and you shouldn’t discount how much better you will likely feel when you’re out and finally free in april. if you can, try and just hang in there for one more month; it’s not always gonna be as crappy as it is now (that goes for ALL OF YOU right now blubbering into your red bulls until 3 in the morning and crying about exams).

    second, this thing with OSAI is not meant to be stressful. i know it doesn’t look that way, since it keeps being all: “MEETING WITH THE DEAN,” “ACADEMIC POLICY” and stuff (why can’t they just use nice words like “a lil pow-wow with the guy in the tall chair” and “some stuff we wrote down so that the stuff you write is hella rad”?), but really, this isn’t supposed to be a horrible punishment. in fact, here is a quote from the OSAI website itself: “Remember that this meeting is not meant to be an interrogation. Under the Code, it is an opportunity for the Faculty of Arts & Science to present its concerns to you and to provide you with the opportunity to respond. If you are honest and straightforward about what has occurred, then it is reasonable to expect that the meeting will proceed very smoothly.”

    they want everything to go well, just like you. honesty is your friend; there’s nothing more you can do. also, you’re not a terrible person. you just made a mistake, whether intentional or not, and all you are expected to do now is talk openly and honestly about it. try and remember that.

    finally, if you’re still feeling really nervous or down or upset about this or school in general, you can always talk to your college registrar’s office. if you think you should speak to a counsellor, you can do that with caps. if you’d rather speak with someone online, that’s an option too. and don’t be nervous about those options, either: maybe they’ll be useful, maybe not, but you need to take your feelings seriously and give yourself a chance if you think you need it. however, if you just need someone to talk to and would rather it not be as official/uoft-associated, why not give this letter-writing website a shot?

    best of luck,

    aska

  • OSAP,  tuition

    the post-secondary payment pickle

    Hey,
    So I ended up being really stupid with money and am paying too much rent/so on. I know now for a fact that I will not be able to pay off quite a bit of my tuition by the time school is over this year. What does that mean? If I cant pay it off will I not be able to enrol in classes for next fall? Will my new tuition fees be put on top of that if I do get to stay and will that mean that I will then be paying interest on the whole lot of it?

    Aside from that, say I were to take a year off to try and pay off my tuition from this year. I know that my student loans start to need to be payed off within 6 months of the last day of my enrolment, so if I do decide to come back after my year off, does that mean I will still have to be paying off my students loans (as it would have been more than 6 months from the end of this year) even though Id be back in school? Or would the payments stop?

    SO STRESSED!!

    ———————————————

    Hey there,

    Alright, I wanna start off by saying that the documents I’m going to link to use a lot of terminology that can sound TERRIFYING if you don’t know what the terms mean. They throw around words like “sanctions” and “penalty” like they’re about to excommunicate* a nation.

    I understand that trying to pay for tuition when you can’t is super stressful (trust me, I break down whenever I see the train fare price on my Presto card). BUT I wanna help you, not add to your panic. What I’m saying is I don’t need you STRESSING OUT, K? Bottom line is: you and the school both want the same thing, which is for the tuition to be paid. That means you can work together to find a solution.

    Onto some policy-mongering:

    Uoft has a variety of ways to deal with people who haven’t paid tuition, which you can read about in more detail here. To sum it up, if you haven’t deferred or made your payment after November 15th, a service charge will start to be applied, which is basically interest on your tuition. If it still hasn’t been paid in full by April 30th, your outstanding fees will eventually be transferred to a an “external collections agency,” which will then take over the job of collecting your debt (you can take a look at the exact schedule of that transfer here). They may also impose academic sanctions, which can include anything from stopping you from requesting a transcript to refusing you future registration, as well as financial holds starting May 1st. That’s the condensed version of it, but I’d really recommend you read the pages I’ve linked to to understand all those things better.

    Depending on how much you owe, it might be a good idea to take a year off and focus on paying the school back. 6 months after you leave school, you would have to start making OSAP payments (they would stop as soon as you re-enrolled into school), but it may be possible to negotiate lower payments or even the preserving of interest-free status with the national student loans centre. I don’t know enough about the situation to be able to recommend taking a year off one way or the other, but what I would do is go to your college registrar’s office to talk about your specific situation, and you guys can figure out the best thing to do from here.

    I know this is a tough time. I know school is hard enough as it is without dealing with all these financial shenanigans. I know tuition rates in this country are absolutely SOUL-SUCKING. Believe me, I cannot empathize more; but it’s not impossible. So listen to some meditative music in your underwear and then go out and calmly speak with people who can help you sort out the problem. It’s gonna be fine.

    Good luck!

    aska

    *excommunicate is not the word I’m looking for. Does anyone know the word for when a nation is being bad and all the other countries, like, say they don’t approve of what it’s doing or whatever? Hmm. You can tell I’m not a Geography student.

  • summer

    the sum of school

    Hi there,

    I’ve tried asking my college about it but I think they misunderstood me. Long story short, I haven’t taken any courses this year at U of T but I want to take summer courses. I know the registration only opens on April 7 ( my college told me that) but when I go to ‘course enrolment’, ROSI tells me I am not eligible for course enrollment. This worries me a little. I really need to take courses this summer. Also, it might be worth noting that I intended to graduate in June but found out I could not. Do I have to officially cancel my graduation request or would it be done for me? I thought it was automatically cancelled. I am just really confused.

    Thanks.

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    There are a LOT of variables in this question (I can understand why your college registrar got confused), so i’m just gonna go through this possibility by possibility, and you comment or e-mail me if I misunderstood your situation, k?

    Ok, possibility #1: You decided to take a year off to do some funky, super-cool stuff. Now you want to come back and complete your degree requirements in the summer. If that’s the case, then you have to go in to your college registrar’s office, fill out a form to reactivate your account, and then you’ll be able to enrol in summer courses. However, you won’t be able to graduate in June; you’ll have to graduate in November.

    Possibility #2: You were suspended for a year. Now your suspension is up, and you want to come back and do courses in the summer. In that case, you have to make an appointment with your registrar’s office in order to discuss the possibility of you starting courses again in the summer (usually there’s no problem, but you have to make an appointment and discuss it with a registrar just in case). Again, if the courses are for the degree you were pursuing a year ago, you’ll have to graduate in November.

    Possibility #3: I’m wondering why you couldn’t graduate in June. Is it just because of some ROSI mishap, and you’ve actually completed all your degree requirements, but you want to take some more courses in the summer as a non-degree student? In that case, you can probably graduate in June once you clear up whatever the problem is, but you’ll still need to reactivate your account at your registrar’s office in order to do courses again in the summer. If you can’t graduate because you actually haven’t fulfilled your degree requirements, then we’re back at Possibility #1.

    As to your graduation request, it seems like you do need to cancel it manually. This page says that “[w]hen you log in [to ROSI], ROSI will communicate to you the degree you might be eligible to receive. You will be prompted to request graduation with the specified degree or to cancel a previous graduation request.” So if you’re not eligible to graduate, it looks like you have to cancel graduation yourself. Here is the graduation cancellation form for UC – seems like most colleges have a similar form to that one for cancellations. Take a look around for your college’s form.

    Capice? Now, like I said, this is a more complicated question than most, so if I misunderstood any of the nuances, just contact me again and we’ll sort it out.

    Stay rad,

    aska

  • psychology,  UTM

    psyder

    Hi, my name is [redacted] and I am a first year student at UTM. Currently I am in Life Sciences? and have taken Economics and Philosophy as my electives to complete my groups. I am planning on majoring in Biology and minoring in Chemistry and I really like Psychology and want to minor in it, but I didnt take it this year. So my question is, can I take Psychology next year and minor in it?

    Thank you

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    i’m slightly worried that you’ve said “currently you’re in life sciences?” as if it’s a question? and you’re not quite sure? maybe you’re in divinity school at harvard, it’s kinda hard to tell? or possibly a boggy marsh in denmark?*

    alright, i’m gonna trust that you really are a utm student in life sci and go from there. so [redacted], (if that’s your REAL NAME), this is gonna be a bit tricky for you, since you haven’t taken PSY100H5. if you want to enrol for the psych minor in 2nd year, you need to have completed PSY100H5 with at least a 63%. so looks like you can’t request the minor this summer to be active for next year.

    HOWEVER, if you take PSY201H5 (which does not have PSY100H5 as a prerequisite) and at least 1.0 more 200+ level PSY courses in second year, and you have at least an average of 63% in those courses, you can declare a psychology minor at the end of second year, and officially be in the minor by third year. whoo! just make sure you meet all the other high school and general requirements, which you can read about here.

    best of luck, man. and stop questioning yourself, eh? you just gotta believe. you are an majestic butterfly who doesn’t need to end all its sentences with question marks.

    aska

    * an easy mistake to make, to be fair. the smell is the same as in the city.

  • courses,  subject POST

    of COURSE, calendar!

    Hello Aska,

    It’s me again. It’s really good to ask any kinds of questions, and you can always always answer them clearly. (Don’t mind me paraphrasing a little bit from a previous post),? you must be my guidance angel in u of t!

    Okay, here is my question. We have new course calendar every year, and I think there may be slightly chances among those calendars. So I am wondering I should focus on the calendar of the my first year, or my graduating year? You know, I depend on those calendars to decide my subject post and stuff.

    Thanks! 🙂

    ???????????????

    ARE YOU KIDDIN? ME?? Two people think I?m an angel! I think that makes it official. I should call up the Church and ask them about the process of being declared a saint. Saint Aska; I think that has a nice ring to it.

    Well, I hate to sully your impression about me as someone who gives clear answers, but the deal with course calendars is a little tricky. When you?re choosing courses, obviously, you should look at the calendar for the year you?re taking them in.

    However, if there are changes made in subject POSt requirements in subsequent course calendars, if you?re already in the subject POSt, those changes don?t usually apply to you. They?ll typically say something like ?if you enrolled after 2010,? or whatever the year they made the changes is, “then xyz.” So if you?re looking at subject POSt stuff, look at the calendar for the year you enrolled. Or, if you want to be really safe about it, you can just look on the website of the department your subject POSt is administered from.

    I hope that makes some sense.

    Best,

    aska

  • colleges,  university-college,  victoria

    hello darkness, my old friend

    Hi!

    I got in to UTSG’s physical and mathematical sciences program along with Victoria College, but I’m not so sure about whether I want to stay at Vic or switch to UC. according to this —, uc is more diverse than Vic, and its residence is definitely newer. So my questions are:

    1. Does choosing a college really matter if I commute? What changes if I don’t commute?
    2. If I live in residence, which one is better? (so for example food, rooms, people, parties, environment etc)
    3. Is it still possible to switch colleges after being accepted?

    Thanks!

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    ahh, the college question. i’d almost forgotten about it by this point. almost. until you brought it up again.

    not to fear though, my friend, you have levelled up from the most vile college question – “wot college is da best 1” – to a tolerable college question! are you proud? you should be proud.

    ok, so if you tried to link to something in those three dash marks after “according to this,” i didn’t get the link, so…i’m just gonna ignore it. onto the questions!

    1. choosing a college does matter if you commute! apart from those abstract notions of college pride, there are a few concrete ways i’d say college choice matters for the commuter. first, the size of the college’s student base determines how busy the registrar’s office will be. do you want to avoid waiting eons for an appointment at the registrar’s office? then maybe pick a small college. on the other hand, colleges with larger student bases may have more resources.

    second, if you think you’ll ever be interested in applying for scholarships, it’s worth it to take a look at the different scholarships each college offers.

    third, different colleges have subtle differences in the kinds of extra- and co-curricular programs they offer, so maybe do some digging and see if any offer things you especially like.

    if you DON’T commute, then you have to factor in what you want out of residence into your college decision. that includes whether or not you prefer co-ed buildings/floors/rooms, whether you want a suite-style or dormitory-style room, the location of the college’s different residences, and the price. nothing else changes, practically or formally speaking. you just live on campus.

    2. i haven’t lived in residence at vic or uc, so i can’t say for sure. what i’d recommend is that you take a residence tour and make decisions based on your own impressions. only you know what you want!

    3. it is possible, but it’s difficult. usually you need a pretty good reason to switch colleges, and it involves a bit of hassle, what with going to your college registrar and having to talk with them about it and stuff. you can read what vic (the only college that even mentions the possibility of switching, to my knowledge) has to say about it here. tbh, i doubt there’ll be reason to make a switch. you’ll see once you come here that you’ll have more important things to focus on than college affiliation, and that colleges don’t figure as much into your student life as you might think.

    i hope you have a grand-slamming end of high school, and that you enjoy first year!

    cheers,

    aska

  • subject POST

    Be es cee

    Hi,

    Love the advice! Thanks for offering such a service. Anyway, I go to UTSC, and I notice it says it if you want to grad with a B.Sc you need a specialist, 2 majors, or 1 major 2 minors in the SCIENCE program. My concern now is that I almost have a biochem major, (2 courses left), I have a bio minor, and I also have an english minor. Due to me changing my degree halfway, from english to another bio and then back again. I was just wondering if this means I can’t get a B.Sc since Eng isn’t a science program? Kind of freaking out a little. Thanks for the help!

    ???????????????

    hey,

    you LOVE it? that’s so sWEET! so…d’you wanna go see a movie or something, sometime, maybe? dancing? let me know 😉

    well now that you got me all FLATTERED, i’m happy to tell you that you will be graduating with a B.Sc. If you have a major and a minor in science and the other minor is in the arts, then the majority of your courses are in science, and the minority are in the arts, which means your degree will be in science. for once, uoft’s policies actually make sense. if you want to read about it for yourself, go here?and scroll down to the second bullet point under program requirements.

    i realize that the link i linked to is a utsg page, not a utsc page, but the Scarborough campus doesn’t have much to say about your situation. however, ?if you go here, you’ll see that utsc says that “[s]tudents who fulfill more than one requirement may select which degree they will receive,” which is a policy about double majors that matches utsg’s. if both campuses treat double majors the same way, then they should treat a combination of two minors and a major the same way, too. which means you’re safe.

    now you can stop freaking out, my friend. just relax. and call me.*

    cheers,

    aska

    * this, dear readers, is what is known as a joke. aska does not actually endorse hitting on strangers over the internet. stay safe, kids.

  • askastudent announcement

    tumblr bumblr

    two announcements in a row??? darnit, aska, we just want a constant stream of informative questions about the minutiae of uoft’s academic rules and deadlines, not your shameless self-promotion!

    i know you’re all just hot for bureaucratic university regulations, but this is gonna be a short one.

    just wanted to let you know that askastudent is NOW ON TUMBLR! WHOO! go to askastudentuoft.tumblr.com if you would like to keep up with aska there. i don’t know what we’ll be doing there yet. maybe there’ll be cake? who knows! it’s an exciting adventure!

    what i do know though is that questions are still going to be posted here on this blog for the time being. the tumblr will just keep you up to date with deadlines, uoft administrative tips and short, frequently asked questions, and that sort of thing. think of it the aska tumblr as collard greens – it’s not the main meal, it’ll just go nicely with your steak.

    alright, that’s all. tomorrow we will return to our regularly scheduled programming. peace out dudes,

    aska

  • askastudent announcement

    a note about the uoft calendar and a meditation on the temporality of human existence

    something alarming happened to me earlier today. i was reading back on this website (aska is incredibly self-absorbed and likes to read her own writing), when i realized that a bunch of the links i’d linked to weren’t working! “zut alors!!” i gasped in horror. “what are the chances that i never realized that half the stuff i linked to was broken?” i asked myself, incredulous. “surely i can’t be that absent-minded when i’m at work,” i said, brandishing my arms in distress and knocking over a bookshelf in the process.

    well i did some investigating, and, as usual, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation which proves that this was in no way, shape or form, aska’s fault, and that aska continues to be a perfect, benevolent and infinitely gracious being.

    all the links to the 2013-2014 calendar for the Faculty of Arts & Science UTSG, which includes links about courses and various subject POSts, will now be broken, because that calendar has been taken down and archived here?for perusing purposes, in case any of you crazy cats are looking for something wild to do on a friday night.

    the 2014-2015 calendar will be published on March 21st, and all questions related to programs will defer to that calendar after that date. for all you nervous grade 12s, that means that your calendar, with all the courses you’ll be taking next year, will be up in under a week.

    i have to say i was pretty distressed to find all those links suddenly broken, but i guess that’s life, isn’t it? nothing can last forever. sometimes, the very people who create something are the ones who end up taking it down, you know? they fly too high and they get shot down, like icarus. but that’s you too, my friend; you too are icarus, flying up ever closer to the light of knowledge, until one day, you’ll inevitably have a nervous breakdown, marathon 2 seasons of Breaking Bad, eat so much ice-cream you make yourself physically ill, and fall into a self-pitying stupor for two days.

    anyway…calendar stuff. yeah. take note.

    cheers,

    aska

  • courses,  enrollment

    the criminal elite

    Hi Aska
    I think I am kind of interested in Criminology. But I checked that intro to Criminology has a R code and its prerequisite is: Open to students in the Criminology program. Does that mean I have no chance to enroll this course at all?

    Thanks:)

    ???????????????

    Hey there,

    Ahh, I?m sorry my friend. Unfortunately, the R enrolment control is pretty inflexible. If a course has an R enrolment code, then it is ?restricted to a specific group of students at all times,”?which basically means that if you are not in criminology, you can kiss that course goodbye.

    Sorry. You could always just hang around shady street corners at night and observe knife crime. I?m kidding. Please don?t do that. Always walk with a buddy at night.

    Cheers,

    aska

  • enrollment

    a propos starting times

    Hi there,

    I was recently accepted to the St. George campus for Social Sciences. I was?browsing the Arts & Science website for newly admitted students (I know,?I’m a nerd) and I came across this?page<http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/newstudents/courses/dates> listing?dates for course enrolment, among other things. I have a few questions:

    1. How are start times assigned (random or a certain order)?
    2. It says that the first date for first-year students is July 30th, but is?it possible that my start time will fall on a different date?
    3. What will happen if I am not available at my start time?

    I know it’s still pretty far away, but I’m planning a trip around that time?so I was just wondering.

    Thanks!

    ???????????????

    Hey there,

    You are nOT A NERD FOR BEING EXCITED ABOUT/THINKING ABOUT UNIVERSITY! I know there?s a culture here on askastudent of gently teasing people who are a bit too anxious about university (there?s even a category on this blog called ?keeners?), but hey, that?s all it is, is teasing.

    In fact, before you know it, you are going to begrudge university like all the rest of us, so be excited while you can. And hey, you?ll probably be a lot better prepared for university than your friends.

    Alright, questions:

    1. Start times are assigned based on what year you?re in, and they?re usually a couple days apart. So fourth year students go first, then a couple days later, third years, then second years, then first years, then non-degree/part-time peeps. I know that?s SUPER UNFAIR, but hey, you?ll be grateful for it when you?re in fourth year.
    2. Unfortunately, if the site says July 30th is your start date, that?s your start date. Keep checking that page though, because they should publish a specific time in the day when you can start enrolling, probably sometime in the summer.
    3. Nothing official will happen; you?ll just have to enrol into your courses when you get a chance. I?d strongly advise that you start enrolling in courses right at the start time though (if there is ANY WIFI where you?re going on your trip, just take out like 15 minutes to do course enrolment), because the longer you wait, the more likely it is that the courses you want to get in will be full. But if you absolutely cannot do it at the start time, it?s not the end of the world.

    Cheers,

    aska