<p>Unlike most people who are pre-med, I'm planning on pursuing molecular bio to graduate school. I know there are 5 different emphasis for the major, and I'm deciding whether BMB or CDB is more appropriate for me. I know that CDB is what most pre-med students take, so is BMB more suited for going to grad school for molecular biology? </p>
<p>One thing I noticed was the BMB people have to take 1 semester of p-chem, and CDB students don't. Another thing, CDB students can choose 3 electives while BMB students only can choose 1. Is going CDB the "easier" way to keep a high GPA?</p>
<p>Are you sure you want to decide on grad school so quickly? You should test out the major before deciding on graduate work. But yeah, CDB is the traditional pre-med major and the average assigned grades associated with its upper-div classes (MCB 142, 130, 130L, and others) are quite a bit higher than they are for those associated with BMB. P-chem is not required for BMB......the reqs were changed just a few months ago. P-chem is incorporated into MCB 100B, the 2nd semester of a 2-semester hellish intro biochem sequence. The former MCB 100 is now MCB 100A. MCB 100B used to be called (and is now cross-listed with) chem 130A (biophysical chemistry). It's not really p-chem though, cause p-chem is Chem 120A-120B. These classes "require" Math 53 and 54, and involve quantum mechanics and more mathematical (than chem 130A) statistical mechanics as well as kinetics. In short chem 130A (bio-p-chem) is half "watered-down" chem 120B and half 2nd semester general chemistry (MCB majors only take one semester of general chemistry---1A------chem 130A has some course overlap with chem 1B). However, upper-div MCB majors tend to be smart people so MCB 100B is gonna be tough. The material will not be as rigorous as real p-chem, but the competition will. My advice to you is explore majors for the first 3 or 4 semesters before deciding on a major (and emphasis)</p>
<p>thanks for the input that was the kind of response i needed to help me decide. I forgot to mention that I'm a transfer student, and I've finished my GE's already so I have to get going with the upper-division courses starting from my 1st semester, if I want to graduate in 2 years. I've taken a 1 semester course at my current college on biochemistry already, and i did pretty well, but i know it won't be anything comparable to what I have to face at Berkeley.</p>
<p>It's good to know that they changed it to a "watered-down" version, but yeah i'm expecting competition I have never felt before, and I am already imaging myself losing my soul during the two years.</p>
<p>So when you say the average assigned grades are higher, you mean that the mean from which they assign the C or C+ is higher than other BMB classes?</p>
<p>I'm not too sure about the grading differences, but I do know that the "softer" emphases (ie, CDB and neuro) classes tend to have higher average GPA's assigned than the other emphases. For example, the average grade assigned for MCB 130L was an A-/B+ last year. Whether this is because these emphases have a higher proportion of studious students, I don't know. All I know is that profs for MCB 100, MCB 110, MCB 110L, MCB 140, and MCB 140L do not hesitate in giving C's and B's to many of its students. I personally know two exceptionally smart people who got C's and B's in one or more of these classes.......one is going to Stanford for grad school, the other is going to Berkeley for grad school. Smart people don't always get A's in these classes. Good luck and I hope this helps.</p>