Classes that come in handy

[DendWrite]

I'm an MD/PhD hopeful in my sophomore year, so right now I'm trying to plan out roughly which upper-level courses I'd like to take. My major gives me a lot of flexibility (I can choose from physics, comp sci, bio, genetics, or chem). I was hoping to find out which classes you found to be most useful to you during your PhD years. Is there anything in particular you took that you found really important?

I'm not 100% sure which are of research I'd want to go into yet, so I'm trying to "expand my skillset" so I'll more or less be covered. Right now I'm planning on taking some programming classes (C++, Java), a few genetics classes and maybe some bioinformatics. Is there anything else you guys would recommend (math classes beyond lin alg. and diff eq.)? I'm not so much looking at "things to impress an ADCOM" (because from what I've heard, taking killer courses don't really help you) but rather things that are "good to know" (i.e. if you don't learn it now you'll end up having to learn it during your grad years and it'll slow you down).

Thanks in advance for your input.

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[jckut10]

,

 

[Davey Havok]

Public Speaking and/or a Powerpoint/presentation class.

This is a skill you are expected to have and use as a PhD, many people are horrible at it (and their talks are nearly impossible to sit through), and if you don't know it you're expected to pick it up "on the fly" as you go through grad school.

As an added bonus, it might help you be in better shape for interviews and medical school patient presentations as well.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

A scientific writing course.

A statistics course.

A rhetoric/public speaking course.

The science courses, taken individually, are unlikely to count as much as any single one of these. As a whole, however, they do provide a foundation of knowledge for the PhD and the MD.

 

[neuro raqs]

seconding statistic, i was stupid and took differential equations instead