I am a Genetics student at ASU. With my associates, I could graduate in two years, but I just got into this really nice lab and I have the scholarship to cover four years so I would really like to stay at ASU for four years to take advantage of the resources they have here. And I am not pre-med.
What I was thinking is to take a couple of minors because I want a chance to explore different things before I have to commit myself to biology 100% for the rest of my life. I was thinking of doing a triple minor in French, Statistics and Sociology. I already have some credits for each of these minors from my associates that are not going to my major, so they wouldn’t be overlapping credits.
Again, I’m not doing the minors purely for my career, as I’m hoping 4 years in a lab would give me an edge there. Everyone I’ve talked to seems to try and steer me into doing a double major with statistics or chemistry, but I don’t love the subjects enough to do that many classes in those fields.
Since you have a 4-year scholarship, take as many advanced classes as you can, not just in biology, but also biostatistics, biochemistry, etc., including at the graduate level.
Since you have enough credits to triple minor, why not? Pursue what interests you. You don’t need to minor in any of them, take classes that interest you. Obviously you’ll have some pre-reqs to take regardless, but once they’re done, take whatever classes interest you most, even if they don’t count for the minor.
I believe you could also use those scholarships to help you earn a graduate degree (at least, that’s what I’ve been told, as I am also eligible to graduate early, but have 4 year scholarships). What exactly do you want to do? Is it possible that a Masters or PhD in your field would give you more opportunities? If so, I would contact an advisor about possibly entering a graduate student program during your third and fourth years.
I talked to a person overseeing the 4+1 at ASU, you pay more for that last year so since my scholarship is a set value, it won’t cover that graduate year. Also, I really want to do my PhD out of state but am not socially ready to live out of state just yet.
MYOS1634
If all the classes for the minors interest me, would it still be ok to take? I looked at the course list and all of the classes look very intellectually stimulating. All three of these minors are in subjects that I I like and have the brain capacity for. Also, biology comes very easily to me conceptually so I was hoping to challenge myself with something different.
But should I take these classes and not declare minor if it will look bad on my record?
Do you think ASU has biostatistics courses? I was going to take Experimental statistics as a part of the minor and see if that was applicable.
Also, are you allowed to take graduate classes as an undergrad? I thought you had to be doing a graduate program for that- since those students pay more tuition
Of course, if all the classes for the minors interest you, it’s perfectly okay to takethem and declare the minor. It’s just that you shouldn’t feel constrained by the minor’s requirements if other advanced classes than the ones they require interest you. If the French minor requires linguistics and you’d rather take French Film, why not skip linguistics and take the class you actually want, even if it means no minor?
Through Barrett, you should be able to take one graduate course per semester, starting junior year. Note that it’s recommended you only take 3 other classes at the undegraduate level, because a graduate course will require more work (full load would be 3 courses so imagine grad course = 5 undergrad credits, although strictly speaking they don’t carry that much credit), unless you’re used to carrying 17-18 undergraduate credits with no problem.
I didn’t know about the Barrett thing. Do you know if they charge more tuition for taking graduate courses or if the credits will count towards full time?
I don’t think that they charge more tuition, no. (Those things change, so check, but as far as I’m aware, no, it’s one of the benefits of Barrett.) The credits count toward full time.
^Yes, but a top student admitted to Barrett would get a scholarship that would more than offset that Without Barrett, ASU isn’t that great, class size in particular is among the worst and funding for regular undergraduate education has been cut a lot (like, in the top 3 budget cuts in the nation.m, which has led to a lot of problematic pedagogical choices.)