So it's not that the classes themselves are depressing, but rather it's depressing she doesn't have time for the interesting but non-required classes anymore.
Sums it up pretty much.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I love science, I work full time in a genetics lab where I mostly work with transgenic animal models/physiology and am mainly looking to get into MD/PhD or DO/PhD programs (hopefully, we'll see). My girlfriend works in a genetics lab too so inevitably most of our dinner conversations end up revolving around some mutation we read about or how much trouble we are having staining or something kind of ridiculous like that.
It's not so much that it's intimidating, I was a bio major so I've already done my share of science classes. It's just that when the decision comes down to taking a 4 credit 3000 level micro class (something is seriously wrong with this school since they don't offer molecular bio, I thought that was a pretty standard undergrad bio class, I really regret not taking it as an undergrad but I was too busy focusing on ecology) or a 1 credit 7000 level grad class about creating transgenic/ko mice, both being offered at the same time, the class that I can get more credit from wins.
One thing that has really been interesting me lately is religion's/moral views on curing cancer and other diseases. Depending on the therapy you use (I'm talking more about approaches being currently investigated like exon skipping and signal suppression) you are fundamentally changing the way a cell functions, very similar in some ways to genetic manipulation. I would really like to know the implications more but my background in ethics/philosophy/religion is just not strong enough and I just don't have the time or energy to start from the beginning.
It's like I'm focusing so much on boosting my GPA and not on actually learning new/interesting material. I guess that's where reading on my own comes in but after studying for classes, reading for work, and wasting the rest of my time on SDN, I don't have a lot of free time left over either. Plus reading is not the same as being able to bounce ideas off of other people and get their feedback whether my line of thinking is within reasonable bounds or not.
Oh, and I'm a he
😉
