Hello, I am a recent graduate from MSU Denver with a bachelors of science with a biology major and a chemistry minor. Forgive me if this is in the wrong forum but this is my first time to this website.
I am currently looking into Masters programs and Doctorate programs, however I have looked into some of the prerequisites and am a little worried.
Many of the programs say they require a year of organic chemistry, physics, calculus, and two years of biology. My classes consist of (no gen ed classes listed here):
General Biology I
General Biology I Lab
General Biology II
General Biology II Lab
Human Anatomy & Physiology I
Human Anatomy & Physiology II
General Microbiology
General Genetics
Immunology
Cell & Molecular Biology
Endocrinology
Physiology of Aging-Non Bio Mj
Microbial Ecology
Laboratory Techniques
General Chemistry I
General Chemistry Laboratory
General Chemistry II
Organic Chemistry I
Organic Chemistry Lab I
Biochemistry I
Biochemistry I Lab
Analytical Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry lab
My GPA was a 3.37 and I have only taken College algebra and statistics for math classes and have not had a year of physics either. I would like to do research and am very motivated. I currently work at Test america in their organic prep laboratory and am wondering if i have any chance to get into any Masters or doctorate programs (doctorate preferred). Please let me know if what i have could be sufficient or if i should go back and take a year of physics before wasting money on applying to schools that i have no chance at without physics or calculus.
Thank you!
You appear to have the two years of biology required, but only one semester of organic chemistry (unless biochemistry counts), no physics, and no calculus. If all of the programs you are checking require these classes, then you’re not competitive and you need to take them.
This isn’t my field so I can’t say for sure, and you don’t say what kind of PhD programs you want to go to (biochemistry? medical physics? biomedical sciences?). So I say - let the programs’ prerequisites be your guide. If they say you need those classes then you need those classes and you need to go back and take them before you apply.
I am thinking about miomedical sciences most likely cell biology. But thank you
it looks like you will need to take org chem 2, the whole year of physics, and calculus. Were you aware of these requirements before graduating? My major was ba for bio(mistake in my application) but im cell and molecular now. and i was suprised i had to take many more chemistry classes.
You will probably need to take a whole year for all these classes as a post bac
No i was not aware of these prerequisites. But i have heard that you can take these classes while in grad school if you are missing any classes
I’m more than a little surprised that they allow you to complete a BS, especially with a biology major and a chemistry minor, without taking physics. I’ve never heard of a program like that. Is this common?
Some graduate programs will let otherwise outstanding students who are missing a couple (1-2) courses take those courses in the first year of the program. By outstanding, I mean students who are very likely to be successful scientists - for example, a hypothetical computer science major interested in computational biomedical sciences, maybe who already has several conference papers in computer science, but who maybe just discovered they wanted to do biomed and has most but not all of the prerequisites. And even then - it’s only a few. You are missing an entire year of physics, 1-2 semesters of calculus (they might require cal 2 or even cal 3), and a semester of organic chemistry. You wouldn’t even be able to start your graduate-level coursework until the second year of graduate school at the very best. You’d spend the entire first year, pretty much, catching up with undergrad coursework.
Unless your record is otherwise very very impressive, most PIs and programs will just opt for students who already have the prerequisites completed - there’ll be no shortage of those kinds of applicants.
I’ve done some research and a lot of cell and molecular biology graduate school dont necessarily require physics or calculus. And yes a lot of programs do offer a BS without calculus or physics
So you should target your applications to programs without those requirements.