Hi all,
Through the flexibility of the neuroscience major at my school, I realized I don’t specifically want to continue with neuroscience- but I’m not sure where else I can fit in, even if I think my interests lie there.
My degree started off as an “average” life sciences degree -
Gen chem, orgo, single variable calculus, cell bio, genetics/genomics, environmental chem - did well in all of them with the exception of second semester orgo being B-.
Then I started taking some of my major’s electives, like intro stats and data analysis (matlab), computational neuroscience (mathematical modeling in matlab), biostatistics (R, Stata) and nonlinear dynamics (mathematica). I did pretty well in all of these classes, and enjoyed them the most. I am implying I gained facility in the languages/programs in parentheses through each of these courses. Also, though unrelated, I took intro microeconomics and macroeconomics, and enjoyed those as well.
I found that I really liked the problem solving in these classes, so I took some more mathematics - linear algebra, multivariate calculus, and a proofs class intended as a transition to higher level mathematics. But my grades in these were frankly, bad. I got (C+,C,B-) respectively. Despite the bad grades, I really enjoyed these classes, and my professor from the lin alg course is one of my good recommenders should I ever apply- he likes me and seems to have faith in my abilities despite this mediocrity. I guess because I spent a lot of time in office hours, and my homeworks were usually perfect.
I would have continued taking mathematics courses if it weren’t a death toll for my GPA to do so.
I also worked in a rat lab for a year and, frankly, hated it. I had little to no desire to find another neuroscience lab to work in when I quit. I found reading papers interesting, and discussing them interesting, but the day-to-day work was soul-crushingly boring to me. From this experience, I at least learned that I do not want to be an academic researcher, and I don’t want to work with rats (as cute as they were - it was just too slow).
In addition to the aforementioned coursework, I’ve taken developmental neuro, behavioral neuro, neuroanatomy, anatomy, and a project lab which is not remotely neuro, but is additional research experience that I actually enjoyed.
I’ve mentally exercised what feels like too many and too few options all at once. Currently I’m looking at finding a job in industry before I apply to graduate school, because frankly, I’m at a loss for what to do with myself - based on what I enjoy, it would be statistics/biostatistics, but my lower level mathematics grades make me think I’m probably not good enough at it, and applying would potentially be a waste of resources.
besides all of this, I am an artist, so I guess as a last resort, I could apply to MFAs and forget I ever thought about science.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
I am open to thoughts, suggestions, personal/remotely related experiences. I don’t find many of the neuroscience posts on here to have a curriculum similar to mine, though that may be the result of my own poor decisions… commenters intending to tell me I am in fact doomed if I apply to any sort of mathematics-oriented program need not apply. I already have a healthy amount of skepticism and would be more interested in ideas of what I COULD do given my background/what I enjoy.