Need Advise

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi</p>

<p>I am about to graduate from UC Berkeley this semester and I feel like i just messed up my grad application to any grad school. Since it was my last semester and only needed 1 class to finish, I got myself busy. I decided to enroll in 4 science classes one including my major requirement, 1 extra elective for my major (no needed for grad but I found it interesting), and 2 science classes (lots of memorization but cool).</p>

<p>My plan was just get these classes with A's and keep going... but then I got offered a promotion. I took it and I knew that it involved more commitment but for 18 per hour that was what i needed to be stable as college undergrad. I have being working around 88 hours per month. </p>

<p>Well I am getting 3 A's so far but the extra elective man I messed up so bad on that class. I changed my grading option to P/NP and the odds are that I will NP that class.</p>

<p>My GPA is 3.14 before getting those 3 A's and I am a MCB major. </p>

<p>I feel like this NP will reduce my chances to get into a good grad school. </p>

<p>I know my GPA is not the best but I have always had a job since I got into school. Being full time student and part-timer was my normal routine but this promotion got me. Since it gave me authority which brought more responsibilities, I sacrificed sleep and as a consequence poorly performed in this class. </p>

<p>Yeah I am a great employee but I feel like I sacrificed the wrong thing. </p>

<p>BTW I would like to get a Computational Biology PhD someday.</p>

2

<p>First of all, one NP will not tank your chances altogether. I failed my junior-level social psychology class, and I am currently in a top 15 social psychology PhD program. (I retook it, of course). If you have an otherwise outstanding application, one single blemish is not enough to ruin your entire career before it begins.</p>

<p>BUT. The problem is not the single NP, but that you have a 3.14 GPA. That’s not high enough to be competitive at most top PhD programs in computational biology. You might find yourself needing to get an MS before you try for a PhD. The fact that you worked a job won’t mitigate that, since there are plenty of students with jobs who managed to maintain higher GPAs, especially since you are only working part-time.</p>

<p>Also, do you have any research experience? If you have none, then you have virtually zero chance of getting admitted to a PhD program at this point anyway. But you could definitely work as a lab tech/research assistant for 2-4 years, and/or get an MS in biology, and then try for the PhD.</p>