Is this language too mathematical for a secondary?

[TheMaverick]

---

Members do not see this ad.

As part of a secondary, I'm mentioning briefly my work on n-dimensional vector fields. However, some terms won't be understood by someone who isn't familiar with calculus, specifically "n-dimensional vector field", "equivalency condition", and "potential function." Do I need to explain the terms? If so, to what degree?

 

[Bangersandmash]

I'd say most likely not, but it all depends on the context. If the secondary is asking "Explain your research further" then I would say explain those terms. If you're just talking about what your research has done for your application, or the topic isn't focused on what you did, it can be mentioned in passing.

 

[gimghoul]

Probably not. They can always look it up or, better yet, ask you in your interview and see how good you are at explaining complex topics.

 

[music2doc]

Probably not. They can always look it up or, better yet, ask you in your interview and see how good you are at explaining complex topics.

True, that said, you might want to bring it back to what you want to do. Give them reason to be interested. If you go off on some tangent about your research and never bring it around, that may fail to support your case. How does the research you have done support your application to medical school/future success as a physician and/or the response to the question? Anything that does not fit within your explanation of that may not really fit your response. It ultimately depends upon the question itself and the approach you wish to take. There are a lot of unknowns here that really only you know.

 

[TheMaverick]

Thanks all for the quick replies!

I'd say most likely not, but it all depends on the context. If the secondary is asking "Explain your research further" then I would say explain those terms. If you're just talking about what your research has done for your application, or the topic isn't focused on what you did, it can be mentioned in passing.

This isn't a prompt specifically about research, its one of those "so what's so special about you" sorts. Although to explain the terms and work down to a basic calc level takes 150-200 words, so do you think I should do that for an "explain your research" prompt if its not my primary area of research (which is on chemical and medical applications of curcumin-polymer conjugates)?

True, that said, you might want to bring it back to what you want to do. Give them reason to be interested. If you go off on some tangent about your research and never bring it around, that may fail to support your case. How does the research you have done support your application to medical school/future success as a physician and/or the response to the question? Anything that does not fit within your explanation of that may not really fit your response. It ultimately depends upon the question itself and the approach you wish to take. There are a lot of unknowns here that really only you know.

Well I use it as one example of a larger narrative of being able to creatively solve difficult problems because I tend to approach them from unusual perspectives and why that would help me in medical school and medicine. Essentially I state that by approaching the system as one that conserves information but produces redundancies, I formulated a new technique to assess if a vector field is conservative and find the potential function if it is. I don't detail the technique or its derivation beyond that because it makes for a tangent and I describe them a bit in the AMCAS ECs (and if they wan't to hear more they'll have to give me an II )

 

[MedPR]

As someone who hasn't gone past Calc 1, I'd say it is a little too mathematical. I think one of the important aspects of being a physician is being able to make medicine/medical terminology relateable to lay people. In other words, be able to explain complex things in a simple, but still scientifically accurate manner. I think you could use this opportunity to demonstrate those skills by making your research more understandable to physicians and other ADCOM members who may not have mathematical inclinations.

 

[TheMaverick]

As someone who hasn't gone past Calc 1, I'd say it is a little too mathematical. I think one of the important aspects of being a physician is being able to make medicine/medical terminology relateable to lay people. In other words, be able to explain complex things in a simple, but still scientifically accurate manner. I think you could use this opportunity to demonstrate those skills by making your research more understandable to physicians and other ADCOM members who may not have mathematical inclinations.

As long as they can understand at least the concept of partial derivatives/integrals, I can explain pretty easily how the technique works (perhaps even the proof) in person. But its pretty difficult to do so in the essay, especially since the explanation would take up much if not most of the allocated space .

 

[Bangersandmash]

If the prompt is not research related, don't worry about it. They'll ask if they want to know more about it at the interview.