<p>What I’m saying is that if you were to study both biochemistry and math, as you advance in your classes, you probably will find that the two areas are completely different. </p>
<p>Some areas of biochemistry research may be theoretical, but my (albeit uneducated) guess is that mostly the science done in that area is very empirical and that the stuff you’ll learn in undergraduate biochemistry classes won’t be very theoretical at all. </p>
<p>The reason why this is is that biological systems are very complicated, so it is difficult to be very quantitative and to develop general theories that give you good predictive power. So my guess (I have never read a biochemistry paper, so take this with a grain of salt) is that a lot of the research is ‘vary a bunch of parameters and see what happens’ because if you don’t have those theories, that’s pretty much the only thing that you can do. If you are really interested in theory, this type of approach may be disappointing for you.</p>
<p>I would also like to reiterate that engineering isn’t necessarily less theoretical than science. A lot of important engineering problems require the use of physical theories and good intuition about those theories in order to solve. What I’m saying is that if you decide to go into engineering, there still is a good amount of theory that you can learn, too.</p>
<p>Don’t say you like theory before you took a theory class, just like I learned never say I hate math before taking memorizing classes.</p>
<p>If you’ve ever taken a theoretical chemistry class, you will learn group theory. What is group theory? It is the mathematical theory of symmetry and transformations, using linear algebra. It is completely useless, has only tiny niche predictive abilities that can be derived from other more general theories, yet you’ll learn anywhere from 11 to 22 weeks of this garbage and be expected to master it. I had the misfortune of having not 1 but 2 classes heavily focused on group theory. The average was something like a 30%.</p>
<p>Biochemistry is probably the 2nd most worthless subject in chemistry next to group theory.</p>
<p>Silent_Kit is right. I’m doing a chemical biology design project on drug delivery, and most of the bio heavy papers needed for the theoretical background have zero math. The chemistry/chemical engineering papers are all math.</p>
<p>It does seem odd that I would find math interesting but not physics. I think part of it simply has to do with the way I’ve been exposed to physics thus far. The homework for the intro physics classes I’ve taken basically consists of finding the right formula from the textbook and then plugging numbers into it to get an answer, which I find utterly boring. What I like about math isn’t so much its ability to stick numbers onto physical phenomena, it’s the remarkable and elegant relationships it reveals between seemingly unconnected mathematical objects. I suppose higher-level physics courses would involve much more theory and much less number-plugging, but even so, I just don’t find the subject matter itself that profound. For instance, we’ve been covering thermodynamics recently, and I just find the concepts utterly dull – I honestly couldn’t care less how efficient a given heat engine is, which processes most effectively convert heat into work, etc.</p>
<p>I think one of the reasons I’ve found the organic chemistry class I’m taking so interesting is that I think living beings are really fascinating and I enjoy understanding the molecular-level processes that make them work. It also involves some of the abstract thinking I like – I like the mental exercise of envisioning the 3D geometry of molecules and conceptualizing the mechanism and driving force behind a reaction.</p>
<p>I’ve been doing a little research into the various areas of applied math and came across the field of computational biology. It sounds like a really interesting field that might be a good way to combine my interest in math and in the life sciences. Does anyone know much about computational biology, what areas of math it primarily involves, and whether it might be a good fit for someone with my interests?</p>
<p>If you want to do research, Chemical Engineers do a lot of it. They can also work out in the field and make more money than chemists. I think you should major in Chemical Engineering. You will take a lot of math classes while you’re at it.</p>
<p>If for some reason you still want to do pure math by the time you graduate, getting an undergrad degree should be easy and won’t take too long since ChemE has a lot of overlap in intro math courses.</p>