NSERC Information Session

Hello fellow Bio students!

It's grant application season, and things are a bit more chaotic this time around due to the strike. In an effort to streamline everything and make sure all the applicants are processed properly, the department will be having a brief meeting to explain what YOU need to do to make sure your application goes through.

The meeting will be THIS THURSDAY at 11am in W4/12 and run for about one hour. If you are planning on applying to NSERC, it would be in your best interest to come to this information session.

Also, some things to get you started from Ria's email last week:

Hi all,

I have some really important information for all the students who will be applying for an NSERC this year. Here is what we know so far:

1. TRANSCRIPTS: ORDER YOUR TRANSCRIPTS NOW!!! It might take a while to process your McGill ones, so do it yesterday!

2. REFERENCES: Make sure your referees print a copy of the letter they will give you in a sealed envelope BEFORE they press submit - once the letter has been submitted it is lost to the internet gnomes forever and cannot be printed.

3. ORGANIZED SUBMISSION: Now more than ever, it is important that your application is submitted as an organized, complete unit. Do not submit bits and pieces of it at a time - they will require your full application, transcripts (sealed, stamped), and two letters of reference (sealed, signed) together and properly organized. Any haphazard method of submission will be detrimental to the probability of your application being processed while the department is understaffed.

4. SUBMISSION DATE: The department has requested we submit our applications WELL BEFORE the Sept 28 deadline, to allow time for them to scan and upload transcripts, and photocopy the documents in time. Please try your best to submit your full application package by Sep. 21 to ensure processing by the internal deadline.

5. BGSA MEETING: We will hold a meeting next week (stay tuned!) to address all the questions or concerns you may have about the NSERC application. We will make sure we have the most up-to-date information available to you there. If you are applying for NSERC this year, it will be imperative that you attend this meeting.



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Cheers,
The BGSA

BGSA Student Orientation Fall 2011

Hello new and returning bio grad students!

We all hope you had a fantastical summer dodging hurricanes, taking in sunshine, enjoying jazzfest, battling the perils of field sites (and animals!) and are back and refreshed for another semester!

As always, we are hosting an orientation for all new bio grad students. We know what it's like to be starting grad studies. New place, new faces, new papers to fill out, new labs, new advisers - it can all be very intimidating. But fear not! The BGSA will be hosting a fun filled and adventure packed orientation afternoon!

Events start at 1pm in room W4/12 of the Stewart Biology building where speakers will give a brief overview of some of the things McGill has to offer you in including information on the Post-Graduate Student Society (PGSS), Career and Placement Services (CAPS), the biology department and us, the Bio Grad Student Association (BGSA).

Following, teams of you will head off on a photographic scavenger hunt to help you learn a little bit about McGill and where to find some essential things. You just have to take a picture of the items as described on the clue sheet each team will receive. Don't worry - a bio grad student veteran will accompany you to help you decipher clues and figure out where to find things. The winning team will receive a prize!

The scavenger hunt will end at Redpath Museum, where, at 3pm, Dr. Howard Rundle from the U. Ottawa will be giving the organismal seminar. It will be a great talk, and a great way to see how seminars work in the bio department.

After the seminar, everyone is invited to the reservoir for our welcome back bbq. Yunny food will be served, and beer will be available for purchase (at cost).

We hope to see you all there!!
Cheers
the BSGA

BGSAFall2011Orientation

Molecular Symposium!

Hello fellow bio nerds!

Who: you, of course (and your favourite model organism)

What: The Molecular Biology Symposium

When: Friday, August 19th

Where: thompson House Ballroom

Why: Because it will be totally awesome!

Dreading the end of the summer? The influx of new undergraduates? The premonition that winter will be cold and snowy?

Well, what better way to end the summer than to check out the molecular symposium happening this Friday at the Thompson House Ballroom. It is an exciting line up with talks from graduate and undergraduate students as well as a poster session so there will be something for everybody. Talks range from ants on dopamine to work on breast cancer cell signalling to mitotic scaffold proteins. The presentation and posters focus on a wide range of organisms like drosophila, C. elegans, arabidopsis and ants! It promises to be a fun and interesting event.

So drop those pipettes and head over to Thompson House on Friday!

MBSS 2011 Program With Abstracts

Thomson House Permaculture Garden Meet N' Greet

There is an exciting new project that will begin around Thomson House in the coming weeks. It will be a permaculture/container vegetable garden which just received money from the Sustainability Projects Fund. This Thursday, June 9^th there will be a meet and greet starting at 5:30 PM in the Thomson House restaurant. Find out more information about the project and about permaculture, and how you can get involved!

Crash-course in R

We're running a 4-hour crash-course workshop on R, for some students from the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network (CHONe), who are meeting here next week. However, there's a lot of extra room in the workshop, so if you missed our introductory workshops last time around, now's a good chance to come out and see what all the fuss is about! We'll be meeting in Stewart Biology's computer lab, N4/17. The workshop'll run from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm (with a couple breaks) on Wednesday, April 27th. We'll be covering trimmed down versions of our first 3 stats workshops:

1. The basics: Opening and using R for the first time, and some basic commands
2. Creating an R project: creating a script file, management of project files, housekeeping, data import 
3. Plotting in R: an introduction

If you think this would be interesting or useful, contact Eric Pedersen, or show up on the day. We may end up running out of space though, so it'll be first come, first serve!