All NRS graduate students (with the exception of agricultural economics) follow the same, highly flexible structure for graduate seminar. Each MSc student will take 3 seminars, and each PhD will take 4 seminars. Everyone will take one proposal seminar and one final seminar. In between, students are free to choose 1 (MSc) or 2 (PhD) topical seminars of their choosing. Topical seminars will vary semester to semester, depending on the needs of our students and the interests of the professors. Each semester, the offerings and a brief course description will be posted on the NRS seminar website.
| Seminar type | MSc Students | PhD Students |
| Proposal seminar | 1 required | 1 required |
| Topical seminars | 1 required | 2 required |
| Final presentation | 1 required | 1 required |
Table 1. Program Structure
Registration Information for Grad Seminars: You must talk to your advisor to determine what courses to take when. It is important for you to attend the Information meeting at 10:00 AM on Thursday Sept. 6, 2012 in R3-048.
Note: “sections” for the different seminars no longer exist; instead, you simply register according to what is outlined below.
FALL 2012 Term:
Master’s Students:
Proposal Seminar: NRSC 643 (Graduate Seminar 1), R3-011
Topical Seminar Techniques in Molecular Biology for Everyone: NRSC 644 (Graduate Seminar 2), R3-035
Topical Seminar Journal Club: NRSC 644 (Graduate Seminar 2)
Final Seminar: NRSC 651 (Graduate Seminar 3)
PhD Students:
Proposal Seminar: NRSC 751 (Graduate Seminar 4), R3-011
Topical Seminar Techniques in Molecular Biology for Everyone: NRSC 752 (Graduate Seminar 5), R3-035
Topical Seminar Journal Club: NRSC 753 (Graduate Seminar 6)
Final Seminar: NRSC 754 (Graduate Seminar 7)
The instructors for the seminar courses in the Fall 2012 term are Elena Bennett, Chris Buddle and Sebastien Faucher.
Questions? Elena.bennett [at] mcgill.ca (Elena Bennett)
Fall 2012
The following seminars are being offered in Fall 2012:
Proposal Seminar, R3-011
Coordinator: Elena Bennett
This course is designed to welcome students to life as a graduate student in NRS. It is open to all NRS graduate students and will cover question development, proposal writing, and proposal talks. All members of the Department, including professors and students, and regardless of registration in the seminar course, are invited to attend the proposal seminar talks, which will take place in the final 5 weeks of the class.
Techniques in Molecular Biology for Everyone, R3-035
Coordinator: Sebastien Faucher
The goal of this course is to cover some of the most widely used techniques in molecular biology and to develop critical thinking of the participants regarding the limitation of each technique. This course is intended for students in all disciplines within the Natural Resource Sciences department and the techniques covered are applicable to a broad diversity of research fields in biology.
Journal Club
Coordinator: Chris Buddle
Journal Club is a series of discussions centred around primary literature within disciplines relevant to the participants - all disciplines within Natural Resource Sciences are encouraged to participate (e.g., microbiology, ecology, wildlife renewable resources, etc.).
Final Seminar
Coordinator: Chris Buddle
This seminar is for students to present the main findings from their research, with an emphasis on presenting the context of the research, main objectives, research methods and results, and a discussion of the implications of main results as related to the larger research context. This final seminar will be departmental-wide, and will offer students a longer-format (e.g., 30 minutes for M.Sc. students, 45 minutes for Ph.D. students) to present their final research results in a “research symposium” format at the end of the semester. All members of the Department, regardless of their registration in the seminar course, are expected to attend the final research symposium.