What classes do you feel made you a better scientist?

[Lucca]

So I have some room in my schedule in the future for a few extra courses. I have a good grasp on which courses have the best rep at my Uni but I was wondering if any of the PhDs or PHD students out there have "indispensable" courses in mind that helped them improve their intuition or significantly advance their subject knowledge. It could be any discipline, I enjoy basically everything.

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[gutonc]

Stats and a programming course or 3 if you don't already have them.

 

[StIGMA]

Biochemistry/molecular biology if those aren't required for you. Also, participate in journal clubs, which will help you get to the next step of scientific reasoning.

 

[Lucca]

Biochemistry/molecular biology if those aren't required for you. Also, participate in journal clubs, which will help you get to the next step of scientific reasoning.

Thanks for the input. I'm a biochemistry major so I've taken plenty of that and I've thought about taking MolBio. What's the benefit of taking it?

 

[StIGMA]

Thanks for the input. I'm a biochemistry major so I've taken plenty of that and I've thought about taking MolBio. What's the benefit of taking it?

Biochem/Mol Bio/Cellular biology have significant overlap. If you have a good background in these sorts of classes a specific molecular biology course won't add much. Reading review articles (and participating in journal clubs for basic science articles) will be more valuable. Nature Reviews ____ or Trends in ____ (Cell's review series) are good places to start if you want to advance in subject knowledge.

 

[Elixir6]

Any class where you read primary articles and review articles. I had a cancer course like that once and it was a great primer. This is especially true if you get to evaluate the articles and fun when you get to read seminal ones.

 

[VlLLVGE]

If you're physically or chemically-inclined, I absolutely loved pchem II/QM. If properly designed, it will function to explain the origins of many things taught in undergraduate physics and chemistry that we are just taught to accept. Many lectures included 'ah-ha!' moments, where the underpinnings of things you had learned as a freshman are revealed and derived.

As far as biology/medically-related classes go, any class that allowed me some sort of freedom and that was not lecture-based. I took a biochemistry II course that was taught almost entirely from the literature, and an advanced cell/molec bio class whose end goal was to write a practice R03 grant, with a project entirely conceptualized by individual students. These classes were fun and taught me critical thinking skills well outside the realm of possibility for typical lecture courses.

Outside of the sciences, I really enjoyed my intro philosophy lecture - the problem of free will and determinism is an interesting thing to think about; this course also touched on ethics, which is obviously important for future physicians.

 

[Lucca]

If you're physically or chemically-inclined, I absolutely loved pchem II/QM. If properly designed, it will function to explain the origins of many things taught in undergraduate physics and chemistry that we are just taught to accept. Many lectures included 'ah-ha!' moments, where the underpinnings of things you had learned as a freshman are revealed and derived.

As far as biology/medically-related classes go, any class that allowed me some sort of freedom and that was not lecture-based. I took a biochemistry II course that was taught almost entirely from the literature, and an advanced cell/molec bio class whose end goal was to write a practice R03 grant, with a project entirely conceptualized by individual students. These classes were fun and taught me critical thinking skills well outside the realm of possibility for typical lecture courses.

Outside of the sciences, I really enjoyed my intro philosophy lecture - the problem of free will and determinism is an interesting thing to think about; this course also touched on ethics, which is obviously important for future physicians.

That cell bio course sounds amazing! I need to shop around for one of these literature based courses, I haven't seen one thus far although I'm taking a very small neuroscience class next semester that is supposed to be somewhat literature/review based.

I am indeed physically inclined, I need to Pchem 1 done first though. The requirements for physics QM here are legion.

 

[VlLLVGE]

I am indeed physically inclined, I need to Pchem 1 done first though. The requirements for physics QM here are legion.

That's strange. It was my understanding that most Pchem I classes are thermo/kinetics while Pchem II is QM, which wouldn't require Pchem I as a pre-requisite. Perhaps they're doing it as a weed-out class. Pchem I is nowhere near as interesting as Pchem II, unfortunately. As my professor put it,

"Pchem I is like your veggies, not very tasty but you need them to be a good chemist, of any sort. Pchem II is like dessert, delicious and everyone loves it."

 

[Lucca]

That's strange. It was my understanding that most Pchem I classes are thermo/kinetics while Pchem II is QM, which wouldn't require Pchem I as a pre-requisite. Perhaps they're doing it as a weed-out class. Pchem I is nowhere near as interesting as Pchem II, unfortunately. As my professor put it,

"Pchem I is like your veggies, not very tasty but you need them to be a good chemist, of any sort. Pchem II is like dessert, delicious and everyone loves it."

The chemistry/bio depts here are pretty lax as far as requirements go but I do have pchem1 in my degree so I could probably do it in either order if I really wanted to.

 

[Neuronix]

I agree with gutonc. Stats, programming, how to write/interpret grants and papers, and how to give good presentations have been the consistently most useful things for me. To me they seem to be some of the most consistently helpful courses no matter what scientific and medical path you choose. The first two (stats, programming) I got as an undergrad. The third I got partially as a grad school course. The fourth I've just had to pick up as I go along. There are occasional lectures on the topic. Unfortunately, I think most professors suck at giving lectures. The marketing people understand this better. Business and marketing would be more useful for the futures of MDs and MD/PhDs than half of what we learn in undergrad, but I digress.

A lot of this other stuff to me (molbio, pchem) seems pretty much irrelevant for your future unless you specifically join a lab that heavily uses that material. That seems pretty uncommon and situation specific.

 

[Lucca]

I agree with gutonc. Stats, programming, how to write/interpret grants and papers, and how to give good presentations have been the consistently most useful things for me. To me they seem to be some of the most consistently helpful courses no matter what scientific and medical path you choose. The first two (stats, programming) I got as an undergrad. The third I got partially as a grad school course. The fourth I've just had to pick up as I go along. There are occasional lectures on the topic. Unfortunately, I think most professors suck at giving lectures. The marketing people understand this better. Business and marketing would be more useful for the futures of MDs and MD/PhDs than half of what we learn in undergrad, but I digress.

A lot of this other stuff to me (molbio, pchem) seems pretty much irrelevant for your future unless you specifically join a lab that heavily uses that material. That seems pretty uncommon and situation specific.

Thanks for the input. Well, I do need to take some science electives and I enjoy those subjects. I'm going to try to find a literature based course. I'm pretty comfortable with programming even though I'm not a software engineer or anything.

 

[haanman]

Agree with gutonc and neuronix that stats and programming can be valuable and hard to get in grad school, with the caveat that what you learn in stats and programming classes may be very different from the practical skills you'd need in your research. So if you go that route, try to choose classes that emphasize applied skills and maybe force you to do some kind of project. And certainly if you're already comfortable with it, no need to do extra.

In general, I would go for classes that interest you but that you'd be unlikely to take during the MD/PhD. That could be physical science, social science, humanities, whatever, but I would actually advise against loading up on biology now--you'll get plenty of that during the rest of your training.

That said, if a bio class really interests you and lets you interact closely with faculty members you admire, that wouldn't be a bad option. That would include a lot of the journal club-type classes, as well as many project-based ones.

 

[QofQuimica]

In terms of specific skills for a future researcher, I agree with what's been said about stats. (Can't speak as to programming; I never took any.) I'd argue that a foreign language might be useful for many people as well. Certainly as a physician, I greatly value my Spanish skills. Agree with Neuro about the business and marketing skills too. Just be forewarned: one of the business classes I took required group projects, and business majors aren't always as, um, motivated to make As as premeds are.

In terms of getting a bigger picture, I agree with the suggestions for taking philosophy, religion, social sciences, ethics, the fine arts, and anything else that gets you thinking about the whys of life. You can't have intuition about or make connections among ideas you've never been exposed to.