Bioinformatics?

[deleted1040417]

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I am considering taking a bioinformatics course at my school. Is it worth it? I definitely need to focus on my ECs and deload on classwork in the spring, but they are selling bioinformatics as a great course to help with research lab work which makes me really want to take it.

 

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I took a bioinformatics course last year and I found it helpful in learning how to navigate bioinformatic tools and interpret sequencing data, especially if your lab does a lot of genetic sequencing. It is a learning curve though and having coding experience helps a lot.

 

[deleted1040417]

I took a bioinformatics course last year and I found it helpful in learning how to navigate bioinformatic tools and interpret sequencing data, especially if your lab does a lot of genetic sequencing. It is a learning curve though and having coding experience helps a lot.

I'm a pretty basic pre-med so I don't have a coding background. I mean I did take a class in computer programming, but the professor literally gave us what to type so it was a major blow-off class. I might just spend more hours on ECs, but idk I really want to take classes too but spending money sucks but learning new things is sweet.

 

[lull]

I'm a pretty basic pre-med so I don't have a coding background. I mean I did take a class in computer programming, but the professor literally gave us what to type so it was a major blow-off class. I might just spend more hours on ECs, but idk I really want to take classes too but spending money sucks but learning new things is sweet.

So in the class I took, we had to take a gene of unknown function and try to better understand its function from its sequence and then write a multi page report and a wikipedia page on it. It was very introductory so there was no coding background required, but we got exposed to a lot of softwares that can be overwhelming to understand how to use without having any sort of coding experience or even taking a stats class where you used something like R studio to analyze data. I think having that coding experience that you had would still be good.

I would say the only thing from that class that really carried into my research experience was being comfortable using basic tools like ncbi blast and then the practice with writing a scientific report. I think if it’s an introductory class like mine, it probably won’t help you that much research wise. But if it is an area of research your interested in, I can attest that bioinformatics is very interesting and it’s a great way to apply what you learn in molecular bio/cell bio.