BIO400Y5 - Biology Internship Course

About the Course

BIO400 provides senior 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.

Finding Placements

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.

Requirements

There will be bi-weekly class meetings from September to April. A year-end report and a presentation are required to complete this course. The full set of requirements and application instructions can be found on the UTM Biology Student Quercus page. If you do not have access to this page, please contact utmbio.advising@utoronto.ca.

Application Instructions

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://forms.office.com/r/Mudkdf10zm 

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”. Access the Placement Rankings form here.

Personal Statement Details

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 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.

The deadline to apply is March 31, 2025, at 11:59pm.

Choosing Between BIO400 or BIO481?

We understand that many students are confused about the differences between BIO400 and BIO481. Students cannot be concurrently enrolled in both BIO400 and BIO481. The Department of Biology held an information session for interested students where current students, alumni, faculty and staff spoke about their experiences and answered questions about the two courses, helping students make informed decisions regarding their course selection. 

Watch the recording of this information session here.

Questions about either of these courses? Contact utmbio.advising@utoronto.ca.