Getting med school pre-requisites part time

[Ceilingcat]

Sorry for the duplicate post. I also posted on the Non-traditional students forum before realizing there is one specific for Canada.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=7900631#post7900631

Please don't hate me moderators 🙂

First, some background. I finished by undergrad in Engineering in the US. I did the regular requirements for physics, general chemistry and math. But I never took any Bio or organic chemistry in my UG. I have some social sciences under my belt as part of the undergrad. My GPA was 3.95.

Current status, I have been working for 7 years, mainly doing software, currently reside in Canada (and intend to stay here) and am working on a part-time masters in Computer Engineering at UoT. And Im 29 and single.

I'm planning to make a career switch into medicine. The first step ofcourse is to get my pre-requisites, which will be a years worth of bio and organic chemistry. I can't quit my job right now and I don't think I will continue with the part-time master's program as I don't see the point of it anymore.

Does anyone have any advice on what the best way to get my pre-requisites on a part-time basis in Canada?

Im based in Toronto. I doubt I will be able to find any evening classes for this, in which case I will have to work with my manager to make up for lost time. But if anyone has any suggestions for getting these requirements, I would very much appreciate it.

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[epyfathom]

you can take evening courses. check out ryerson's continuing ed department. or you can take distance learning courses such as athabasca.

 

[Ceilingcat]

Thanks, I will check those out.

 

[Ceilingcat]

Do you know if medical school would accept ryerson courses for the pre-requisite requirements?
I looked at the UoT website for example and it didnt really say anything about having done the courses from specific schools and such.

 

[epyfathom]

as long as ur taking a course from an accredited university they will accept it. However, not sure if they will use it to calculate gpa as some universities.

 

[Ceilingcat]

Yeah, I found out that I can take distance learning courses and get it done that way. I prefer they didnt use the pre-req's to calculate my GPA. I have a good undergrad GPA and I rather not screw it up 🙂

For anyone else coming across this thread, the options for DE I have right now are Athabasca and waterloo.

 

[MeowMix]

There are some problems with doing part-time prereqs. Some Canadian med schools will not count them towards your GPA b/c they think somehow you are cheating by not going to school full time. Others won't count them at all: McGill, for example, says for prereqs: "Distance/correspondence education courses are not acceptable." There is at least one person posting here who got screwed by this system, and ended up going back to do an entire second undergrad degree in order to eventually get in to med school (successfully).

This is a peculiarity of Can vs US med schools. It is really skewed against non-trads and those who did not know from the cradle that they were Destined To Be Doctors.

Also, look at the Can equiv of SDN:
http://www.premed101.com/forums/
this will give you much more accurate Canada-specific info than SDN.

 

[Ceilingcat]

Thanks Meowmix

Yeah, I did end up finding that Canadian forum. There are not as many options in Canada as there are in the US (fewer schools, no post-bacc, extremely competitive). Most schools do seem to accept the distance courses for pre-reqs so that works for me 🙂 . I didnt want to screw around with my undergrad GPA so that works well for me.

I'm planning to sign up for the Waterloo distance program. Lets see how that works out.

Thanks for the post.

 

[mashmetoo]

I'd recommend Ryerson's continuing education courses, distance education courses are not accepted by many many schools, I was in a similar dilemna a year ago, and opted to go to Ryerson (from my experiences, the courses are rather easy, and won't mess up your superb gpa if you put sufficient time into it).

 

[Ceilingcat]

I'd recommend Ryerson's continuing education courses, distance education courses are not accepted by many many schools, I was in a similar dilemna a year ago, and opted to go to Ryerson (from my experiences, the courses are rather easy, and won't mess up your superb gpa if you put sufficient time into it).

Hi mashmetoo

I noticed allot of programs require pre-req with labs. So you're right, perhaps the ryerson option might be better, since I can atleast take the labs there.

Did you run into any schools not accepting your pre-reqs from ryerson?

Thanks

 

[mashmetoo]

Hi mashmetoo

I noticed allot of programs require pre-req with labs. So you're right, perhaps the ryerson option might be better, since I can atleast take the labs there.

Did you run into any schools not accepting your pre-reqs from ryerson?

Thanks

Hello, I've applied all over the US this year, and didn't get any problems with Ryerson's prereqs. They only issue is that Ryerson separates the lab and lecture components of their courses (e.g. if you take first year general chemistry, instead of taking 1 chemistry course including a lab component, you have to take 2 courses, 1 course just for the lecture, and 1 lab course for the laboratory component, so you pay the fees for 2 courses). Potentially, this could be an advantage if you don't have any general chemistry credit at all, so this lab course + lecture course counts as 1 full credit by itself... However, if you already have half a credit of general chem, and you just need another half credit of gen chem with a lab component, you basically have to pay twice as much... But as I said, depends on your situation. I was in the latter example, but I thought it was still worth it, as the grades make up for the extra fees lol

Other than that, their courses are perfectly legit, and can fullfill your prereq requirements. ryerson is an accredited University just like Queen's, McMaster, Western, take your pick, and their courses can be used for prereq purposes.