RunnerGrad

Academic masters programs aren't really that competitive in Canada. 
That doesn't mean you will get in, but it is fairly easy to get accepted to masters programs even in the top Canadian universities. 

I don't know about much bias along those lines, but I think that there is an indirect relationship, because someone who puts out highly respected work is obviously more likely to get a tenure track position. 

I don't think that's true anymore for a lot of fields since there are way more good researchers being produced than tenure-track positions available. For example, Andy Merrifield, a pretty well-known and very highly respected Marxist scholar was denied tenure at one point several years ago and has since adjuncted and made a living as an independent scholar.

This is very very good advice!!! 
 
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Also, as much I don't like being the negative one, I think the truth is that age will be a factor in your admission decision. Whether it's fair or not and whether we want to believe it or not, an applicant's age will probably be something that the admission committees will think about (maybe only internally, in their own heads, maybe discussed amongst the group). 
 
However, I agree that age is not necessarily a negative factor and that there are lots of positives that come with age (as others said above). I don't think any good candidate will be rejected because of their age. But I do think it's naive to think that the admission committees will be "age-blind" in their decision.

Students range from 22-28 in my program except for at least one "non-traditional" student.  They do bring in perspectives that may not necessarily be appreciated at first -- only because you've lived through the BS and they haven't (yet).  Graduate school will be what you make of it.
 
Age does factor quite a bit if you're thinking of becoming a professor when you finish the PhD because the job market is too unstable, faculty would prefer not to have a lot of turnovers (and only God knows whether or not that tenure line will disappear), and the time involved in piecing together your academic career.  Unlike law firms where you can become a partner 5 years or so after you work with the same law firm after you graduate (so let's say 8 years total).  In academia, you'll need 6-8 years of graduate school plus (in best case scenario) 6 years on the tenure track so that's a total of 14ish years.  So you may not be tenured until you're in your 50s.  Professors realize this and are a bit wary if you truly intend to become a professor at a research university.

Oh yes, because being objective surely is an evil oppressive concept.
 
By the way - most historians I have spoken with agree with me. I would argue that you are in the minority, not me.
 
I mean - I agree that many people claim to be objective and are not, but that doesn't mean that the basic idea of objectivity is bad.

The Health Promotion stream at the University of Toronto's MPH is actually the largest of the streams.  Nutrition & Dietetics, and Occupational Health, are both much smaller.
I'm currently studying at UofToronto (MPH Nutrition & Dietetics), so if you have any questions about Toronto's program, feel free to ask.  I can't tell you anything about your chances, as I'm not involved in admissions, but I can talk about the program in general, as well as the courses that all the public health streams have to take.
 

Undergraduate publications don't matter for many fields.

I wouldn't give up after just one month.
If your master's program is anything like mine, you have to get through the theory first, before you get to the practitioner-level skills you are looking for.
We were told that we needed to do all the basic theory first to make sure that everyone was on the same page.
I often felt like some of the courses in my first year were a complete waste of time - as I can done more, and covered things in greater depth, in undergrad.  Fortunately I had some courses that introduced new topics, taught me new skills, and actually seemed like real, graduate-level courses.  Now in second year, I'm finding all my courses are challenging, teaching me new things (or covering topics I was introduced to in undergrad, but now in greater detail), and requiring a LOT more work.
Do you have the opportunity to take many electives in your program?  I've found my electives to be some of the more interesting and stimulating courses, as I can choose to explore something new, or something that I want to learn more about.  UofT has SO many departments, with all kinds of interesting courses being offered.  It can be hard to find them, though, as you have to go to each department's individual site to find out what courses they offer that are open to students in other programs.

I wouldn't give up after just one month.
If your master's program is anything like mine, you have to get through the theory first, before you get to the practitioner-level skills you are looking for.
We were told that we needed to do all the basic theory first to make sure that everyone was on the same page.
I often felt like some of the courses in my first year were a complete waste of time - as I can done more, and covered things in greater depth, in undergrad.  Fortunately I had some courses that introduced new topics, taught me new skills, and actually seemed like real, graduate-level courses.  Now in second year, I'm finding all my courses are challenging, teaching me new things (or covering topics I was introduced to in undergrad, but now in greater detail), and requiring a LOT more work.
Do you have the opportunity to take many electives in your program?  I've found my electives to be some of the more interesting and stimulating courses, as I can choose to explore something new, or something that I want to learn more about.  UofT has SO many departments, with all kinds of interesting courses being offered.  It can be hard to find them, though, as you have to go to each department's individual site to find out what courses they offer that are open to students in other programs.

I always laugh at the "Don't stay at the same university" advice.  I know professors who have their bachelor's, master's and PhD all from the same institution, and they are now assistant, associate, or full professors at that same institution.  So they didn't move at all.
Of course, they are in the minority.  But the fact that I know of several, just off hand, shows that it is certainly possible.  Especially in niche fields and in a country like Canada, where there may not be a lot of programs available in your field of choice.  And I've seen it not just at the smaller schools in Canada, but also some of the larger universities.

I will have two answers here. One that is idealistic and one that is practical. 
First, the idealistic answer: The fact that you are an international student and would have to go home if you dropped out of your program does not impact the morality of using funds to attend one graduate program while really taking courses to fulfill another goal. I'm sorry, but I think a student that accepts money (whether it's from the school or another source) to complete a certain PhD program while knowing that they will be in fact fulfilling another set of requirements is acting immorally. In the ideal world, the right thing to do is to either drop out of your program or finish the Masters program, return home, and then reapply to an undergrad program in your new field.
The practical answer: I'm sorry that the above answer is really judgmental. I realise that reality doesn't allow everyone to take perfectly ideal actions. I don't think this justifies immoral actions, however, sometimes the cost of being moral is higher than the cost of taking the immoral action. I don't know all the details of the situation but the fact that you are considering it means that there must be some really strong / compelling reason for you to take this action. 
In your first post, you say
The truth is that you are betraying your program and your professors by deceiving them about the intent of your time in their program. As I said above, you may have good reasons to do so, but you should proceed knowing that this is what you are doing. As such, my only advice for you is to be very careful and ensure that you stay within the bounds/policies of your program and your funding source as much as you can. I agree with ExponentialDecay that it is almost impossible for anyone here to give more specific advice because everything depends on your situation. Also, even if I knew your situation better, I'm not certain I would want to advise you on how to "cheat" the system because if you are successful, it eventually and indirectly hurts students who enroll in programs they intend to complete. 
All this said, although I don't agree with or support what you are trying to achieve (or at least, what it sounds like you are trying to achieve from the content provided here), I understand that you need to do what's best for you and I wish you good luck! I hope that you will recognize and realise that you are entering some immoral areas and take responsibility for that.

Hi don't know about U.S. Programs, but in Canada, at UofT, you can take a public policy specialization as part of any MPH program.

Since I'm in nutrition, I actually have studied obesity. It isn't as simple as calories in = calories out, as some of you think.  It also isn't always about personal choice.
 
If any of you actually care to educate yourselves, here are some good studies and other articles on the topic:
 
The epidemiology of overweight and obesity: public health crisis or moral panic?
 
2006 Canadian clinical practice guidelines on the management and prevention of obesity in adults and children
 
ECONOMIC CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF OBESITY
 
Here are some great graphics that illustrate the many causes of obesity:
 
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/nutritionrunner/determinants_zps32a90d05.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/nutritionrunner/obesityfactors_zps9041a94e.png
 
Oh gee, look at all the factors that aren't under an individual's control!  Imagine that!
 
The following is the best illustration of all the many factors that affect obesity.  It is an incredibly complex problem:
http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html
 
So please, educate yourself about the causes and treatment of obesity before you go assuming it is the individual's fault.  The research being done in this area indicates that there are many complex, interacting factors that affect obesity and obesity rates.  It isn't always a matter of eating too much and moving too little.  It is much, much more complex.  Energy balance is only part of the equation.

The description may say that guests are allowed -- and they certainly will be -- but this is a situation where you have to read between the lines a bit and get a feel for the context of the situation. As pretty much everyone else has said, it would be unusual to bring parents along to a graduate orientation, just as it would to bring parents along to an office party or other work event. You can safely assume that "guests" means "significant others or dependents" in this circumstance. Regardless of the reality of your situation, bringing your parents along would give the impression that you want or need parental approval / observation / guidance etc. I was just about to type something about "politics," but really, it's not even that. It's just being attuned to certain social norms. "Don't bring your parents to grad school functions" is one of those unwritten guidelines you simply have to pick up on.

Getting offended is a choice, and what you do with the comments you get here is also a choice. I don't think anyone here was attacking you or saying anything inappropriate. We've told you about what often happens at orientation at the schools we know (usually just our own, so for each of us, sample size (n=1)). If you expect things to be different at your school, then go ahead and do what you think best fits your situation. I personally think the university-wide orientation events are mostly useless and it's fine not to attend, except if you're interested in free food and/or want to meet new friends (both legitimate goals, the second perhaps less attainable if you'll spend the entire time with your parents). Departmental orientations are more important to attend, but even at the social events, I think it's unrealistic to think that you'll be able to spend the entire time with your parents. This is a great opportunity to meet new friends, and it'd be a shame not to be able to do so. As Eigen says, it's common to leave guests on their own at some point(s) during their visit. They are visiting you at your work place, and it's not always going to be possible for you to drop everything for the entire time they visit and just hang out with them. I don't think it's rude, it's just the reality of visiting someone while you are on vacation but they are not.  

I would seriously urge you to re-think not attending yourself.
 
I'm sure your parents will understand, and this is usually one of your best chances to get to meet your new colleagues. I think the expectation that it would be rude to not devote all your time to someone visiting isn't the best one to take into grad school either.
 
I've had a lot of times I've had family & friends in town, and given them a day/half day to go explore without me because I had work to do- it's quite common as you get older.
 
You also might be reading a bit too much into some of the comments here if you're getting offended by what eteshoe said. They didn't imply that you were those things, just stated what the case would be.
 
I'm a bit surprised at your description of the events, I've never heard of any school doing receptions, lunches and dinners for incoming graduate students and families, that sounds a lot more like what I'd expect for undergrad. Maybe one event to get to know your new department, but it seems like your school is doing a lot more than that.

Did I say that? I said that giving preference to legacies, over a more deserving student (and I dare you to tell me that doesn't happen) just perpetuates privilege. I'm saying that legacy status helps elevate students based on factors that have nothing to do with the student (which is true). If you can't get in on your own merits, and need legacy status to sneak in to a school, you are taking a spot from a student who deserves it more, and are, in fact, a bad person. (And that isn't even getting into the racial and economic disparities tied up in legacy issues).

Sometimes the lab manager/professor is indeed a bad teacher but it could also be that you and the teacher just have two different styles. And since the professor is the boss and you are the "employee", you do what the boss says. For example, if I work at Subway and the boss says to layer double cheese on top of one another but I think it's better to tesselate the cheese so there's more coverage, I still do it the way the boss says because the boss is the boss!
 
To address your lab specific example, I also worked as a lab TA (for sophomore students) for a year. I also tried to very rarely directly answer the student's question, at least the first time around. This is not because I want them to get it wrong so I can deduct points, but because I want them to figure it out for themselves. This was an electronics lab and a sample interaction might be:
 
Student: "Hi, could you help us? Our oscilloscope display is showing wonky things?"
TA: "Okay, that does look weird, could you describe to me what it should look like?"
Student: "I am expecting something round and smooth but this is very sharp and jagged."
TA: "Yes, so where is the signal coming from?"
Student: "The function generator."
TA: "Okay, what are the settings you've set on the function generator and why did you choose that?"
Student: "It's set to 1.250 KHz because the lab manual suggests that. Oh, the manual said something about the sinusoidal wave setting but I didn't know what that meant so I just pressed this button here."
TA: "Okay well this set of buttons here determines the type of wave being generated. Why don't you try the 4 choices and tell me what kind of wave they make. I think one of these four is the right setting!"
 
In these lab situations, I try very hard to resist the temptation to just tell them what to do to fix it. Sometimes it's very clear that they just need to press a certain button or turn a switch, but I always try to answer their questions with leading questions so that they can figure out the answer, either by causing them to think about a point, or by teaching them how to determine an answer by experimenting with parameters (after all, this is a lab course!). This takes way longer but I think it's worth it in the end. If I told them what to press each time, they might get to the end of the lab but might not actually learn very much since they would have just been following my instructions. I would prefer to see them figure out the lab on their own and get through 75% of it than not learn anything but finish 100% of it.

I've heard this sentiment before, and I would hope it's just a half-serious "warning" for new grad students and not the actual way of thinking in most programs. I think it's unreasonable to assume that those who excel at coursework can only do so at the expense of their research. I'd like to think at least that advisors and committees can recognize cases where this sentiment does not apply. 

I'm not exactly excusing my ignorance here, but I had no idea that this stuff was going on until about...hmm, a year ago. In my defense, I come from a blue collar family, and I've always been told that education is the door to opportunity, or something like that. I suppose I'm the stereotypical sheltered child. I didn't even know what adjunct faculty were until I TA'd for them in undergrad, and even then, I unknowingly bought into the myth that they were adjuncts because they weren't good enough to get a better job. That's how my advisers treated them, anyway.    While I can't excuse my ignorance or terrible-if-uninformed thoughts about others, I can understand why the veterans on the GradCafe are tired of fielding this discussion over and over. The GradCafe is often the first step prospective applicants make towards graduate school. For people like me, it's our first wakeup call. Cue shock, denial, anger, etc.    I don't think I qualify as a forum veteran yet, but in the future, I'd like to recognize conversations like this and steer them in a more productive direction. I think it would be useful to say "Here's what the rest of us are doing--come fight for a better university with us." 

In my discipline, there isn't a lot of adjunct/sessional labour used, because in order to maintain accreditation, a certain number/percentage of those teaching future professionals in my discipline need to be tenured and/or tenure track professors.  Too many adjuncts/sessionals/grad students teaching and not enough TT/tenured profs, and your program loses its accreditation.  Now, of course there are some adjuncts/sessionals used, because people still take maternity/parental leave (one year in Canada), go on sabbatical, retire before they can be replaced, move before they can be replaced, etc.  But it's not a huge problem.  Not a lot of people in my discipline go on to get PhDs either.  Most, at least in Canada, top out at the Master's level, because that's pretty much all you need if you want to climb the career ladder in my discipline, other than in academia.

Guys, I am not going back through and looking at the posts and just writing from memory. Again, pardon my factual error regarding the chronology of events. It was Fuzzy Logician's early post that really make me feel stupid and made me decide to take my post down, if it's so important for me to specify exactly what I found to be so disrespectful on this thread. It seems like everyone is looking for small mistakes in my language and my retelling of events as a means to ignore the real points I'm trying to make. Thanks for nothing, and bye.

Yes, health is a priority...AND, grad school is a job and it needs to be treated as such. If the lab schedule has an impact on your symptoms, take the initiative to discuss that with your supervisor in private and ASK if it would be okay for you to work an alternate schedule. Handled directly, you supervisor will likely be accommodating (and she may have to be, depending on the condition). If the accommodations she offers are not sufficient, you may need to look elsewhere. But never assume that you can waltz in late and all will be okay as long as you produce data. Your supervisor seems to put a strong value on consistency in scheduling. She may have good reason to, or it may just be a personal work style preference. Either way, it is her call.
Never assume. Always ask. Show her respect. Play the game - it makes life much easier in the long run, and will increase your chances of your superior being a good reference and advocate for you in the future. Your next superior may be far more laid-lack. Until you find that laid-back supervisor, you need to find a way to succeed with the one you have.

Just wanted to add a thought from an employer's perspective - your supervisor may have been waiting for you to take initiative and come to her in private to explain your behavior. She may have been offering you a chance to redeem yourself. I realize you were tired, but your decision to not spend 60 seconds composing an email notifying her that you would be out on Monday speaks volumes. Unprofessional, inconsiderate, and disrespectful. That would have gotten you fired from many jobs. When the days passed and you did not initiate a discussion with her, and in fact it became clear that you were not even aware that your behavior was a problem, that may have been the final straw. 
You seem to be taking a victim stance that will ultimately hurt you as you progress in your career. It's a challenge, but sometimes we need to accept accountability for our mistakes and then sit with it - without rushing to point out how the other person was in error. There are many valuable lessons for you in this relationship if you are willing to take a step back and learn from it.