Applications now open, deadline March 31, 2023, 11:59PM
This course provides senior (4th year and beyond) Biology students with the opportunity to apply their life science knowledge and skills in a work placement for academic credit. Placements are unpaid and require 200 hours of placement work over the full academic year. This equates to approximately one day of placement work per week. Placement hours can be completed on site or remotely (dependent on, and delineated by, the University and placement site) and within regular business hours (Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm). Biology placements can be throughout the GTA in both the private (e.g. pharmaceutical industry, biotech companies, etc.) and public (e.g. hospitals, government agencies, etc.) sectors. The BIO400Y5 Experiential Learning Officer arranges placements for students after the successful completion of an initial interview, skills assessment, and resume review.
Best efforts are made to place students in sites that are appropriate to their academic backgrounds, interests, and experiences, but there are no guarantees as to the type of placement that is provided. Students will be asked to attend an interview with their provided placement site supervisors prior to beginning their placement work. All placements are subject to agreement by both the placement site and the student. Final acceptance into the course is dependent on being successfully accepted as an intern with a placement site. BIO400Y5 is a unique opportunity to experience a workplace setting.
There will be bi-weekly class meetings from September to April. A year-end report and a presentation are required to complete this course.
PLACEMENT:
· Not all candidates who apply will be accepted into BIO400 due to space limitations. Preliminary acceptance into the course is based upon a successful application package and a successful interview with the Course Coordinator(s). Best efforts are made to place students at sites that are appropriate to their academic backgrounds, interests, and experiences, but there are no guarantees as to the type of placement that is provided. Students will be asked to attend an interview with their provided placement site supervisors prior to beginning their placement work. Final acceptance into the course is dependent on the official acceptance of a student as an intern with a placement site.
· The course requires 200 placement hours, which equates to one day of placement work per week. Successfully accepted BIO400 student interns must plan their course timetable to allow for 8-10 hours of placement work per week throughout the academic year.
· It is highly recommended that international students who are interested in applying for BIO400 visit the UTM International Education Centre (IEC) to determine any parameters regarding eligibility for participating in placement work for academic internship courses.
· Placements can be remote, in-person or hybrid dependent on Government and University policies, rules, and regulations instituted in response to the changing circumstances surrounding COVID-19.
STUDENT REQUIREMENT:
Placement and participation in this course are limited to students who meet the following criteria:
· Registered as a full-time, degree student at UTM for the entire 2023-2024 academic year
· Completed a minimum of 15.0 credits, including a statistics course, by May 2023
· Minimum GPA of 3.0 in most recent 10.0 credits
· Fourth year standing in a Biology specialist or Biology major program
· Students cannot take BIO481 or have a concurrent enrolment in any other internship, research, or ROP course while taking a BIO400 course
· Students cannot complete BIO481 and BIO400 simultaneously
NOTES:
- Students enrolled in one of the Biology specialist programs will be given priority.
- Not all excellent candidates who apply to take this course can be accepted due to space limitations. Marks are not the final basis for acceptance decisions.
- Your entire application package must be received by the submission deadline.
- Failure to follow the application instructions and errors in completing the form can affect your application status. Be sure to take care when applying.
Successfully accepted BIO400Y5 students must plan their course timetable to allow for 8-10 hours of placement work per week throughout the academic year. Placements can be remote, in-person or hybrid, dependent on Government and University policies, rules, and regulations instituted in response to the changing circumstances surrounding COVID-19.
Choosing BIO400 or BIO481?
We understand that many students are confused about the differences between BIO400 and BIO481. Students are not able to complete both courses for credit. Last March we held an information session for interested students. Current student, alumni, faculty and staff spoke about their experiences and answered questions about the two courses, helping students make informed decisions regarding their course selection.
Video Link: https://play.library.utoronto.ca/watch/773f5ac89d9bc2aeb4955ef0f8899f12
Questions about these courses? Contact stephanie.dorego@utoronto.ca
1. Prepare your personal statement, placement rankings form, and resume (See details on the attachments below)
2. Collect contact information for ONE (1) UTM Faculty or TA referee. DO NOT request a letter from this referee; just obtain permission that they would be willing to act as a reference for this course.
3. Complete and submit the application form via MS Form: https://bit.ly/3xO1KD1
4. Upload the required documents when prompted on the form.
Placement Ranking Details:
The following questions provide information to help us find the right placement for you. Please CLASSIFY your level of preference for each of these activity descriptors as High (H), Medium (M), or Low (L). Make a choice for every Activity, Subject, Work Environment, and Location. If there is an activity that you would likely refuse if such a position was offered to you, mark this item “X”.
Personal Statement Details:
Upload a PDF document.
For your top 3 choices in the Placement Rankings Activity above, explain for each in turn why these items attract you more than the others Consider not only your strengths, but areas and Activities in which you would like to learn more about and improve your skills. For your lowest three rated Activities (including “X” ratings) briefly explain your low interest. Max. 250 words.
Resume:
Upload in PDF format. We recommend that you review the on-line Resume & Cover Letter Toolkit (https://bit.ly/38V52Zo) available through the UTM Career Centre before you review and update your resume for this application. Be sure that your UTOR e-mail account is listed on your resume and no other e-mail account.
Applications now open, deadline March 24, 2023, 11:59PM
Everton Smith: The World of Kidney Transplantation
Supervised by: Segun Famure, Ajmera Transplant Centre, UHN
Lara Navarro: Facilitating Clinical Research Efforts
Supervised by: Bethany Lerman, Kinza Naeem, Adrienne Davis, SEARCH Program, The Hospital for Sick Children
The BIO400 Presentation Day tool place on April 10, 2023.
We would like to congratulate all of our BIO400 students for completing their internships successfully this year! BIO400 is our internship course in which students are partnered with an organization within GTA for a work placement. We celebrated BIO400 student achievements in our BIO400 presentation days on March 31 and April 7 this year. This year we had two Best Presentation winners: Vanessa De Gregorio & Jhankhana Shah!
Vanessa's BIO400 internship placement was at the Hospital for Sick Children where she focused on investigating the risk of premature atherosclerosis in survivors of childhood cancer under supervision of Dr. Paul Nathan, Ms. Anne Christie & Ms. Emily Lam.
Jhankhana’s BIO400 internship was at the Acquired Brain Injury Research lab where she focused on conducting a systematic review on interventions targeting cognition in persons with primary central nervous system infection under supervision of Dr. Tatyana Mollayeva (KITE Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network).
Winners: Caterina Bordignon & Maryam Ishtiaq
Winner: Naila Alyousef
Runner up: Mariela Faykoo-Martinez
Winner: Sean Menezes (Health MaRS Discovery District)
Runner up: Joshua Foster (LightSpeed Physiotherapy)

