Inside Kinesiology's School of Anatomy

Did you know? In our Kinesiology program, you get to study anatomy on real human cadavers — in your first year!

Waterloo is among just a handful of universities in Canada that gives first-year students this kind of hands-on experience.

Tamara Maciel is the Senior Laboratory Demonstrator for the School of Anatomy and she takes pride in teaching in the human anatomy lab for KIN 100 (required course that all first-year Kin students take) and helping her students build the skills they need if they want to pursue a career in health or medicine.

Tamara thinks learning anatomy is a lot like learning a new language: it requires practice and repetition. But Tamara tries to make learning anatomy as practical and hands-on as possible by focusing on concepts, logical relationships, and experiential learning.

While anatomy apps for mobile devices can supplement this experiential learning, Tamara admits she is a bit old school, she says “there are no substitutes for the real thing.”

Get an inside look at Waterloo’s School of Anatomy and meet Tamara by watching this video.

NOTE: This video features our old anatomy lab space. It's been updated and is even brighter and better now! We just haven't had a chance to film in it yet. But the content you'll learn is the same, so this video is still worth checking out.