First, I want to say welcome to all of you second year Integrated Science students! I hope you are all super excited for the upcoming school year, even though classes will be online. My name is Charu, and I will be going into my fifth and final year of integrated sciences and my disciplines are molecular biology and immunology. I am in both the Co-op program and honors so feel free to reach out if you have any questions about these! Lastly, but most importantly, I am your ISSA (Integrated Sciences Student Association) VP Admin for the upcoming school year, so you will probably hear from me in various blog posts and such. Second year ISCI can be such a confusing time. I remember having no idea what courses to take as an incoming ISCI student. I heard the words "degree proposal" had no idea what that was. I was overwhelmed by the number of courses I was interested in. I ended up spending hours looking into possible courses I would want to take in my upper years and looking into their pre-requisites to try to cover every possible angle, just in case I changed my mind. I know most upper year ISCI students went through a similar experience. As an ISCI student, you are given this amazing opportunity to plan your degree. What it also means, is you can literally take any course you want. With the vast number of courses available, this gets to be very confusing! I hope to provide some clarity and to guide you through this confusing mess, as you near course registration. Below is a general guideline for courses needed in second year for specific disciplines. Of course, these are only suggestions and there may be courses I have missed! Ultimately, you can take any course you choose to, and integrate any subject you are passionate about so you should make sure to do your research on what pre-requisites may be required for any upper level courses you are interested in. I only hope to shed some light on a very confusing grey area. Note You also have to make sure you fulfill your general requirements from the Faculty of Science! Check out these links for more details: Shout out to our amazing Marketing Coordinator, Hannah, who made these beautiful visuals!!!
Note: If your integration involved life sciences, you will be required to take BIOL 200 and BIOL 201 or BIOC 202 Other resources The CMS Package worksheets may be helpful – it has details on their 7 subjects and combinations which may help you in your search for courses. Another good idea is to look at other Majors (Biology, Microbiology, Stats, Biochemistry, …) on the UBC advising website and see what courses are mandatory in second year. In September, we will have events to help you find a Mentor and offer a Peer Mentor program for help with your degree proposals. Right now, just focus on planning out your courses for this upcoming year, and thinking about what courses you will want to take later in your degree. Good luck! And of course, feel free to reach out to those of us here at ISSA, Mary Anne (Program Manager and Advisor) or Science Advising if you need any support with course planning! Cheers, Charu
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From a final year ISCI student. 1. The ability to build your own degree
The freedom to choose your own specialization allows you customize and tailor your degree to support your passions. 2. Very few requirements! Instead of taking courses you are not interested in, you can focus on what is actually essential to your disciplines. 3. Fantastic faculty mentorship ISCI has a great group of faculty mentors. This means you will have one-on-one time with a UBC professor who will help guide you as you design your degree and possibly beyond! 4. No required lab courses This can be both a pro and con, but I like to see it as a pro. Lab courses take up a lot of time, and so without them, you will have a lot more free time to be a part of the UBC community. This could be through volunteering, working, joining a club, or even assisting in a research lab! Research experience is worth 10x what you will learn in a course. 5. Really cool courses ISCI offers some really cool courses like ISCI 361 where you go to Hawaii or Iceland to study sustainability! Another fun course is ISCI 320, a research retreat without internet, or ISCI 350, Darwinian medicine. 6. An amazing department Mary Anne Lyons, the Program Manager and Advisor, is incredibly kind and helpful, and is always there to answer your questions and help you out! Lee Groat, the Director, is passionate about his teaching and loves getting to know every ISCI student. He is a great faculty mentor as well! 7. Directed Studies! Directed studies are a great opportunity for upper year ISCI students to carry out an individual research project, with the guidance of faculty. This can be lab, field, or theory based and allows you to apply your knowledge and gain real world experience. 8. An outstanding Co-op program. Yas Azarpajouh, the Co-op coordinator for ISCI, genuinely cares about each of her students and goes above and beyond to help each student find success! Many ISCI students pursue really cool Co-op opportunities—from clinical research to wet lab to industry, ISCI students are there! 9. Peer Mentorship ISSA offers a peer mentorship program, where second-year students are paired with a senior student who is able to answer your questions and provide support as you pick your courses and write your degree proposal. Of course, once you are a senior student, you can volunteer to be a peer mentor and give back to the ISCI community. 10. ISSA! The Integrated Sciences Student Association (ISSA) is all about helping and connecting ISCI students and has some great events to do so! From Meet your Mentor, where we help you find a faculty advisor, to proposal workshops to Meet Your Alumni, where ISCI grads offer insights on paths after your BSc, ISSA is there to support you! |
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January 2022
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