Admissions Requirements

[snobored18]

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Ok I'm in a bit of a bind my top choice MSTP program (Mayo) requires a YEAR of calculus which I assume to be calc I and calc II. Being the typical pre-med I took calc I during my freshman year and forgot all about it. I really at this point don't feel like taking the damn class...not to mention probably can't squeeze it in. Has anyone out there heard of instances where programs were flexible with some of the not so ordinary requirements??? I don't need suggestions on what to do I have a handle on that end, but I would like to hear if anyone out there has skirted through without completing some of the more ridiculous requirements.

 

[ChyLn]

I like some of the MSTP's are pretty flexible about their requirements. I know at Duke if you don't fulfill their requirements you can petition the committee anyways. I would just call and ask.

 

[hawkeey]

Ok I'm in a bit of a bind my top choice MSTP program (Mayo) requires a YEAR of calculus which I assume to be calc I and calc II. Being the typical pre-med I took calc I during my freshman year and forgot all about it. I really at this point don't feel like taking the damn class...not to mention probably can't squeeze it in. Has anyone out there heard of instances where programs were flexible with some of the not so ordinary requirements??? I don't need suggestions on what to do I have a handle on that end, but I would like to hear if anyone out there has skirted through without completing some of the more ridiculous requirements.

Frankly, calculus is pretty important if only to understand the basic concepts especially as biology becomes increasingly quantitative.

However, nobody is going to give you a quiz on your calculus when you get there. Simply taking the course freshmen year is sufficient.

That said, you are very fortunate now that there are computers programs that will do all the integrations and differentiations for you if you only know what to ask it. If you do not know, this is what theorists are for.

Some fields will require more mathematics than others. Biochemistry and biophysics as branches of quantitative science of course require more mathematical background. If you are going to do X-Ray crystallography, then a good knowledge of multi-variable calculus, physics, and fourier transforms would be highly recommended. Molecular biology seems to using more and more biochemistry and biophysics as questions about structure, kinetics, and energies are becoming increasingly necessary to understand biological phenomena.

With regard to the "pre-med" philosophy, I think that it is the worse thing that has ever happened to medicine. We now have people who want to become doctors who are learning to take the easy and safe route rather than expanding their horizons and challenging their mental capacities. It has become more advantageous to learn less in order to get into medical school. If anything, this alone might justify something such as a MD/PhD if only to let people who are truly interested in learning and thinking become doctors.

This of course is said with no personal offence, but the idea of a "pre-med" philosophy makes me quite angry.

With all of that said, if you have at least taken and passed the specified courses you will be fine. What medical schools expect you to know is somewhat expressed on the MCAT and what they require you to know is what they will end up teaching you; however, they will be teaching it to you at the level expecting you have at least been exposed to the prerequisite ideas.

 

[CaipirinhaQuinho]

With regard to the "pre-med" philosophy, I think that it is the worse thing that has ever happened to medicine. We now have people who want to become doctors who are learning to take the easy and safe route rather than expanding their horizons and challenging their mental capacities. It has become more advantageous to learn less in order to get into medical school. If anything, this alone might justify something such as a MD/PhD if only to let people who are truly interested in learning and thinking become doctors.

This of course is said with no personal offence, but the idea of a "pre-med" philosophy makes me quite angry.

great post. we should be encouraging pre-meds to take hard classes and think for once (which may sometimes earn you a B+)

As for the OP question. Since I'm coming from an engineering background, calculus is so fundamental to the way i think about medicine and research. I also think diff eq's is fundamental and I applaud harvard's hst for making this a requirement. I don't know how you have survived without calc and I would recommend trying to get it in. i have heard rumors of some schools that let you test out of the requirement.

 

[huknows00]

I agree with the Calc thing, it is a way to understand complex scientific phenomena beyond the obvious observations. For example, if you want to be a cardiologist, you need to know at least the Navier-Stokes equations to fully appreciate the fluid mechanics of the circulatory system, the effect of turbulence etc... not merely to memorize from a book that stenosis is bad, and high blood pressure is bad etc.

 

[SeventhSon]

I agree with the Calc thing, it is a way to understand complex scientific phenomena beyond the obvious observations. For example, if you want to be a cardiologist, you need to know at least the Navier-Stokes equations to fully appreciate the fluid mechanics of the circulatory system, the effect of turbulence etc... not merely to memorize from a book that stenosis is bad, and high blood pressure is bad etc.

i disagree strongly with what you said, knowing the Navier-Stokes equation doesn't give you any fundamental insight into anything that will immediately make you a better researcher or physician, but I will say that I have no idea where my critical thinking skills would be if I didn't have to take the ridiculous amount of math I took as an engineer.

 

[CaipirinhaQuinho]

i disagree strongly with what you said, knowing the Navier-Stokes equation doesn't give you any fundamental insight into anything that will immediately make you a better researcher or physician

I don't want to turn this into an engineering debate (since we are certainly the minority on this board) but I agree with Huknows00 on the NS eq. I think that knowing a mathematical model that describes physiological phenomena gives you a tremendous amount of insight on how the system works. In my opinion, understanding these models that describe life is the only reason to know math.

 

[SeventhSon]

it's funny because this is becoming an increasingly-interesting question. We have for the most part for the most part any system of biological interest (or industrial interest, for that matter) have to ditch first principles at some point in our description of a system in order to make something applicable to reality and resort to correlations, heuristics, etc.

I mean if I remember correctly you can't solve N-S in closed form unless you make some pretty significant assumptions regarding the PDE. What is important is that you understand what is viscocity, and what the Reynolds number means conceptually in terms of viscous vs. other forces, in terms of an up-and-down understanding of such parameters' effects on fundamental fluid properties rather than being familiar with the NS eq. per se. The mathematical model says that but I think that the math gets so convoluted, even at levels where the assumptions are too great to make the answer accurate. I could describe conceptually Re, viscocity etc. and I think give someone all that understanding without ever pulling out a nasty PDE.

The bottom line that I have always found though, that if you are willing to pursue topics (such as a lot of math, etc) out of your own interest, it's always amazing how often something like a mathematical motif will randomly show up in a biological system, or how understanding some concept in say physical chemistry gives you a unique way of looking at something in molecular biology or medicine. I guess that was the spirit of what I was trying to say. I suppose reasoning out my answer I do agree with what you wrote in kind of a different way... I think the insights are much more serendipitous and spontaneous.

Of course, it will be interesting as systems biology continues to get better... and maybe we'll have computers powerful enough to make solving NS numerically on complex systems so that they actually agree with experiment

 

[SeventhSon]

finally let me add that I think I kind of interpreated huknows slightly differently. Of course I thikn a cardiologist should understand viscocity, Re, pressure drop, and the bernoulli eq. on a greater level than freshmen physics, but NS doesnt add any additional enlightenment to those concepts. However, let me qualify that I never took biomechanics, and hell the guy who wrote the book on it literally (Fung) is at my school, so I can understand how a BME probably has a better in this specific example than I do.

This post has become stupid because I've started to talk about NS rather than what this thread is really about, and I think we're on agreement about what is important.

 

[snobored18]

Wow this post has really sunken to engineering majors arguing that bio majors that stay away from math suck. I agree the quantitative side of biology is becoming increasingly important...but to be honest this is why most major labs are hiring or associating themselves with bioinformatics groups. As far as the pre-med philosophy is concerned I agree it encourages people to take the easy route and avoid some great classes...but honestly for MSTPs this is a non-issue we aren't your typical "pre-meds" in this sense. Applying that debate to me is absolutely pointless and in fact my mention of pre-med was making fun of the fact that most pre-meds avoid calc altogether if their undergrad doesn't require it. The fact is I hate math to me its boring as hell...I'm not an engineer...I'm a molecular biologist and for me taking calc I for math majors is all I really need to understand stuff...I sure as hell don't need diff eq or topology to do what I do...the point of this thread was to see how flexible schools are on requirements that apply solely to their MSTPs and not to the graduate school or medical school (which in mayo's case the medical school doesn't require calc...and nor does the grad school so I am at a loss why MSTP would need a full year instead of just calc I).