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Office of the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies

McMaster Academic Planner (MAP) - Faculty of Science

Gateway Programs

Gateway Programs

Whether you know exactly what area of science you are interested in or are still undecided — or change your mind after you arrive — the structure of our four Level 1 Gateway programs will provide you with a range of Level 2 program options.

Regardless of your path, at the end of first year you will rank, order and apply to up to four Level 2 programs.


Chemical and Physical Sciences Gateway

Everything we know is either matter or energy. Understanding the ways in which matter and energy behave and interact is critical to understanding the universe at every level – from the submicroscopic constituents of matter to the macroscopic behaviour of galaxies and star clusters. This understanding comes through a mix of mathematical description, computational modeling, and experimental investigations.

Chemical and Physical Sciences Gateway: Learn More

Environmental and Earth Sciences Gateway

Human life and society depend critically on environmental resources we all too often take for granted: air, water, soil and the mineral and organic resources of the earth. With increasing attention to global warming and climate change, there have been dramatically more scientific research and employment opportunities in this area.

Environmental and Earth Sciences Gateway: Learn More

Life Science Gateway

An understanding of the tapestry of life comes not from a single discipline, but is woven from all of the Life Sciences: biochemistry, cell biology, genomics, developmental biology, neurobiology, psychology, ecology, and earth sciences. The avalanche of information available from these fields allows scientists to look at biological systems in unprecedented detail. The key is to integrate knowledge across disciplines in order to understand organisms and their place in the ecosystem.

Life Science Gateway: Learn More

Mathematics and Statistics Gateway

Mathematics and Statistics study patterns underlying diverse phenomena such as the weather, human and animal populations, stock markets, the form of a molecule, or the structure of the space and the time. Using mathematics, we discover subtle and sometimes unexpected features of these phenomena; as well, we can predict their behaviour, which is an extremely important component of our understanding of the world and the space that surrounds us. Statistics can help us make sense of large data sets and complex systems in areas such as astronomy, genomics, social networks, climate simulation, and medicine. Statisticians examine the patterns which arise in data with the goal of distinguishing true patterns from chance effects.

Mathematics and Statistics Gateway: Learn More