<p>What major (chem, bio, biochem) would be the most beneficial complement neuroscience if my goal is grad school for neuroscience?</p>
<p>business (accounting finance economics) something that will actually get you a job.</p>
<p>Well my passion is for the sciences and I’m familiar with your posts on this site so I’d appreciate responses that can help me determine which science helps the most (chem, bio, biochem, physics, etc) for complementing the understanding of neuroscience. But thank you for the response nevertheless.</p>
<p>In a strong neuroscience program, you already would be required to core courses in supporting sciences (basically, the equivalent of the typical premed requirements) that will prepare you for graduate school. Also, neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that can be approached from many different perspectives and at many levels from the cellular to systems. So, there is no one best field; it depends on your particular interests, which may change as you delve more into the field. Besides the fields you already mentioned, other fields that could be good complements to neuroscience include psychology; speech & hearing sciences; linguistics; philosophy (philosophy of the mind, neuro-ethics, bioethics); computer science; various bioscience subspecialty majors (e.g. microbiology----leading to the study of neuro-immunology, infectious diseases of the nervous system, etc.; physiology; molecular biology/biochemistry/biophysics; genetics/cell biology/developmental biology; ecology/ evolution/animal behavior; etc.); certain areas of special education (e.g., learning disabilities; brain-injury; deafness; blindness; autism); human development/gerontology; history/philosophy of science; and, even art/art history (if you had an interest in visual perception) or music (if you had an interest in its neuro aspects).</p>
<p>thank you for the helpful reply. so since neuroscience is so wide open, you would advise me to look into a variety of different areas to see which one i have a particular interest in? can this be done in undergrad or should this be reserved to grad school? also, should i attend a large university to have many of these options available, or would a mid-size LAC do the trick just fine?</p>
<p>I agree with sschoe, lets all sell our souls for money. :)</p>
<p>^^ I think looking into a variety of areas is good no matter what your field of study. During your undergrad years, your interests may change, even within the field you ultimately select. Some people even change their area of focus in graduate school, not so much to a different discipline as to a different area of research within their primary discipline. Often discoveries come at the intersection of two fields.</p>
<p>At the undergrad level, don’t forget that you’re there to get an education. There is time enough to specialize at the graduate level. So, yes, explore other areas that interest you. That doesn’t mean you have to sample them all. Through your coursework, your own reading, interactions with professors, and opportunities that come your way, your interests will evolve and you’ll figure out what topics sustain your interest enough that you want to focus your graduate studies on them. Even in a graduate neuroscience program, you may rotate among labs in several subspecialties before you settle on one area of specialization.</p>
<p>It’s not so much a matter of larger vs. smaller university. It’s more a matter of coming out of your undergrad studies with a solid foundation in core supporting sciences, a strong foundation in key neuroscience concepts, and developing your skills as a apprentice scientist—learning how to formulate a problem, read the literature, design experiments, carry out research, present your findings verbally and in writing, etc.</p>
<p>For neuroscience you also might look at the link in my post in this thread:<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/science-majors/1034342-neuroscience.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/science-majors/1034342-neuroscience.html</a></p>
<p>I’d just hate to see an intelligent person end up like this poor sap.</p>
<p>[Science</a> Careers Forum - Biotech, Pharmaceutical, Faculty, Postdoc jobs on Science Careers](<a href=“http://scforum.aaas.org/view.php?id=60485]Science”>http://scforum.aaas.org/view.php?id=60485)</p>
<p>It is not about selling your soul for money its realizing what is and is not a viable career or worth the effort. You are going to need to pay back student loans and earn enough money to eat and put a roof over your head. That is something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>" My school’s career centre dosen’t really deal with PhDs, so there are no career fairs or meet-and-greets or anything of that nature. " rofl bad choice of a school!! </p>
<p>Well I’m a strong believer of doing what you love. It seems to be a common misconception and wide-spread lie on this forum that if you get a business degree lets say economics you are guaranteed a high paying job. While I wish this were true. I mean my friends graduated from Berkeley with a bachelors in econ with honors. It took him two years to find a job. He went back to school to try to go into medical because he didn’t think it would work out. While I don’t doubt that econ degrees get more jobs and get paid higher on average. It’s not the golden ticket. We should be asking ourselves how much longer will business degrees be viable? Because one they only really teach you about anything that revolves around money and two these degrees are definitely seeing an influx of people. How much longer before they end up just like a bio degree? Then what do you have? A degree that thought you about numbers, markets, marketing strats, money, and business models which in the end are screwing you with complex derivatives that you don’t even understand!</p>
<p>In the end all you have is your mind. Personally Im not doing anything for money I gave up that aspiration months ago.</p>
<p>What I’m really trying to say is. Who cares about the statistics because unless you are exception you won’t end up with a great job that pays well anyways. Get a degree in whatever you want. And believe you are the best a what you do and make it true. Just because wall street economists and accountants live in fairy tale land with hookers and blow, doesn’t mean you can’t too. Dream big.</p>
<p>I am strictly speaking business no other degree.
My apologies if this is poorly written I am on an iPhone!</p>
<p>Viva la revolucion!</p>
<p>And plus I think that neuroscience is “where it’s at” for the future. Discoveries are being made everyday so I feel that there will be many opportunities. But I agree, I don’t see how people can major and succeed in something they’re not passionate about, whatever that may be.</p>
<p>Actually there is a sociologist I can’t remember his name off the top of my head. That predicted our society will use technology: discovery, invention, and I think the last one was innovation, will usher in a new society, a biotechnological society. So I really think that science is the way to go. Anything that follows technology, I really think they jobs like accounting and economics as it pertains to stock trading will be obsolete eventually. I mean they have machines trading in Wall Street already a firm got nailed for it. And it turns out they are better, cheaper, and faster… lol</p>
<p>I completely agree with you.</p>