<p>This question is for current or past biology graduate students, preferably molecular biology students.</p>
<p>I'm currently a biology undergrad student planning on attending graduate school for genetics. I have room in my schedule to either minor in something (probably either English, Gender Studies, or Political Science) or take a bunch of extra courses of my choosing. So my question is are there any courses you took or wish you took as an undergrad that you've found have really helped you in grad school that aren't typically recommended to biology undergraduates? If so, what are those courses and why have they been helpful?</p>
<p>Take any class that will help you develop your reasoning and writing skills. Anything that helps you write clearly and concisely will be tremendously helpful when you’re writing papers. I would also recommend seminar-style courses where you read, analyze, and discuss the primary scientific literature.</p>
<p>If there’s a subject you think you might be interested in researching in grad school, take a class in it, no matter how specialized. I wish I had taken a neuroanatomy course as an undergrad – my school had a class in it, but I didn’t take it, and now I’m trying to cobble together neuroanatomy knowledge on my own, which is not so fun.</p>
<p>I’d probably look at some of the grad schools you’re looking at attending and check if there’s any courses where something is ‘strongly reccomended’. There was a thread back about physical chemistry in regards to cellular/molecular biology that might be worth checking out, and I know that BME often requires computer science and linear algebra.</p>
<p>I have been working in lab for quite awhile now and I regularly wish that I had taken…as boring as it would have been…anatomy. I work in the biomedical sciences (and use a lot of molecular biology) but I have difficulty working with systemic diseases (due to a lack of knowledge about how different cell types coexist). Not having a good background in anatomy also makes working with animal models much more difficult.</p>
<p>Oh and I wish I had taken statistics more seriously. I have used statistics for every experiment I have ever done.</p>
<p>Finally, I think you should take a microbiology class because it is unquestionably the most interesting field in all of science. :)</p>
<p>I am a grad student (MCB). I tacked on a weird major in undergrad. In general it gave me a different outlook on things, and it allowed me to develop my writing skills and learn statistics. I am not really sure which route is the best for you to go.</p>
<p>Classes I really wish I would have taken.
Math through advanced calculus (only had 3 semesters of calculus)
optics
P-chem (more because I am weird and always wanted to take it)
More advanced physics classes
general Cell biology (took tons of specialized courses instead, which I dont recommend)</p>
<p>Other courses that are helpful:
biochem
immunology
advanced genetic courses (since you want to do genetics)
neuroscience
microbiology
anatomy/physiology
histology
Writing classes
Research experience
Development
statistics
Computer science
math modeling/computer programming
Immunology and Neurobio are really helpful to take in undergrad since these fields really have their own language. I took both of them in undergrad. Most of my classmates did not and this is a major road block that hinders them from understanding/going into those fields. Anatomy may also be in this catagory. The downside of taking them is grad faculty assume most people have not had them during classes, and you get to listen to lecture on what a T cell is multiple times a semester (gets very old).</p>
<p>Genetics is a very vague field to say you want to go into… so if you give us more specifics, we can probably help more! Previous posts cover most of my thoughts but:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>beyond-basics evolution courses (they really taught me to think about WHY things are, not just how/what they are)</p></li>
<li><p>anything that promotes problem-solving and critical thinking (we had a specific problem-solving class for science majors)</p></li>
<li><p>Perl for biology (insanely useful every time you find yourself doing some mind-numbing repetitive task on the computer)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I second what Evoviro said about learning basic programming to run scripts. Otherwise you will end up staring at sequences on a screen until you go blind.</p>
<p>^Either way, come to grad school with eye insurance. (That’s not really a class, but maybe it’s relevant to the thread because it’s something to come to grad school with?)</p>
<p>When I was writing my prelim, I was getting nasty eyestrain headaches. I went to the eye doctor, who said, “Do you ever sit in a dark room and look at something bright?” Hello, this is basically my life?</p>
<p>EvoViro: I’m not really sure exactly what kind of genetics research I want to do in graduate school yet that’s why I just kind of asked any molecular biology students.</p>
<p>Serric: I’ve seen the recommendation for Physical Chemistry, but I just don’t think I’m going to do it. Chemistry majors at my school complain that it completely kills their GPA in their senior year and the prequisites are insane. I’ve opted to take an upper division Analytical Chemistry course instead. I know its not p-chem, but I figure it shows ability in working with more quantitative chemistry.</p>
<p>It seems like the courses you guys recommend most are computer programming classes and statistics. Will an introductory course in computer science teach me the skills you guys are talking about? (I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not tech savvy). </p>
<p>Also will any introductory statistics course give me a background for grad school? We have an introductory algebra based one, a calculus based one, and one strictly targeted toward math majors.</p>
<p>I’m not too sure on the statistics thing…quite a few programs I’ve seen incorporate a bio-targeted statistics class into the undergrad curriculum; have you taken that? If not, a statistics course that targets the basics (ANOVA, probability, etc) would be invaluable for graduate work.</p>
<p>As for not being sure of the type of research you want to do, I’d try to figure this out first before determining what classes you want to take so you can supplement.</p>
<p>A simple way to do it is brainstorm a few topics that were touched on in your classes, and make a list of the ones you like. Then look up a few grad schools you might like to attend, go to the cell/molecular biology department (and poke around; a lot of places have subsets for, say, something like cellular/molecular neuroscience), and look at what types of research the faculty are doing. Also has the added benefit of making sure you’re a good fit at the school and bolstering your application :)</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend taking a programming/intro computer science class. Once you get a handle on one language (C++ or Java are common in intro classes), it’s fairly easy to just pick up a book on another language (like Perl or Python) and teach yourself (most of them share a similar syntax and structure). I can’t guarantee it, but I would bet that, given the way things are going, programming could prove very useful. It’s a lot of fun, too, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Regarding stats: if you’re comfortable with calculus, definitely take the calc-based one. If not, then the algebra-based one will probably suffice.</p>
<p>Honestly, take what interests you most. You’ll be studying bio for the rest of your life, why not take a film class, or an art class or something else now, while you can?</p>
<p>Serric: My school doesn’t have a statistics course targeted specifically to biology majors. I wish they did.</p>
<p>I have another question for you guys. What do grad schools think of AP credit? I used AP classes to place out of gen chem, gen bio, and my calculus sequence. I’m not worried so much about bio and chem because I’ve obviously had to take higher level bio and chem and I’ve done well, but I really haven’t had to do anything with my calculus knowledge and I didn’t do that great on the AP test (just good enough to place out). Will grad schools look down on this? Should I take calculus again?</p>
<p>No, there’s no need to repeat classes for which you have AP credit. Grad schools won’t care, and as long as you can survive graduate-level classes in your area of interest, it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>I have heard of medical schools liking students to repeat a very standardized track of courses. That can include calculus, for instance. If you don’t at all mean medical school, then I cannot imagine there being a problem with moving on.</p>
<p>mathboy98: I have no plans to go to medical school</p>
<p>My school has a calculus sequence that is just for biology students. I’ve never really looked into it because I thought I was done with calculus, but I looked at the course page and it looks like they have computer labs where they do some math modeling and it also looks like they cover quite a bit of statistics in the second half of the course. The course is an introductory calculus sequence, but it looks like it has some good stuff way beyond what I learned in AP calculus. Does this sound like it would be a good class to take because I actually think it sounds pretty cool.</p>
<p>If you already have AP credit for intro calc, I would not take the class you referenced. You can talk to people at your school and see if it is really helpful. I recommend that you instead talk the calc class next in line after the class you have credit for. As I said before, I recommend that you take several years of calculus, if possible.</p>
<p>Math/physical science classes for biologists are typically less math intense and move at a slower pace (familiar with these classes at several schools). If you already had calc, you will be board in that math class. They typically water down those classes since biologists are not strong in math. You will gain a lot more by taking advanced calc classes. You will probably do math modeling in the non-bio classes. </p>
<p>As for statistics, I would take a regular stats class or teach your self. I took general and a few applied statistics classes in undergrad. I worked as a tech for awhile before grad school, and my research involved tons of statistics. I still had to purchase and read several statistic books to design my experiments. An undergrad class is helpful for understanding the language in this situation, but you will still need to learn very specific and non-classical statistics if you pursue a stats heavy project in grad school. Undergrad classes will not prepare you for this. If you really want to prepare, purchase and read a biostats and non-parametric stats book to start. Learning as I went was the most helpful method for me (and it helped me really learn the material).</p>
<p>If you got a 3 on the AP Calculus AB exam and haven’t seen any calculus for a couple of years, I wouldn’t recommend jumping into multivariable calculus without extensive self-study to refresh your memory. And I doubt any modeling will come up in a math-majors math class unless you a take differential equations class. That said, mtlve is right about life science calculus classes being watered down. If you take the regular calculus classes, you’ll be able to learn whatever they learned in the other classes pretty quickly by borrowing a book.</p>
<p>sarbruis: I got a 3 on the calculus BC exam and a 4 on the AB (so yeah not very good), but I wasn’t really thinking about taking multivariable calculus. The only other math class I’ll probably take is an applied statistics sequence. I just thought the other class might be good to learn the connections between calculus and biology. Should I be considering taking more advanced math classes like multivariable calc?</p>