So, I am going into my final year as a psych major and bio minor. However, for my minor I need to take 2 second year biology courses, which I will be taking in the upcoming school year. I've already taken cell biology and the only other choices that would seem relevant (and interesting) are microbiology and genetics. I'm just wondering what you guys thought was the better class? Which one did you prefer?
Microbiology or Genetics?
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If you have not taken the MCATs, genetics will be helpful. I think in general genetics will be more helpful in the long run as a medical student. Personally, genetics is a much more intensive class than microbiology at my University, so you learn much more in Genetics than you would in microbiology.
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I think as far as medical school goes--what you need tends to be covered in lower level bio. Genetics isn't a HUGE part of medical school. And it's more basic and disease oriented. In college genetics, you'll be tested on your ability to breed or predict the parents of chickens. It's thorough, and you'll learn a good bit. But aside from the basic Mendellian genetics and X-linked patterns--I'm not sure how much more you need.
Micro I think sets you up well for Med school micro.
Micro I think sets you up well for Med school micro.
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At my school, Genetics is extremely difficult and memorization intense, but a good grounding in this discipline would serve you well in med school. Microbiology is easier to get an A in and more fun (from my point of view). Your school may vary from this. Be sure to ask others about relative course difficulty so you aren't surprised.
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I found microbiology much more applicable. You learn A LOT about the different kinda of bacteria/viruses that elicit disease in humans. I'm sure the difficulty of the classes varies between universities, so ask around if you're just looking for an easy class.
I guess I should have mentioned that I've had the professor that will be teaching genetics for biochem and really liked her.
The professor for microbiology I've never had before but she has a lower rating on ratemyprof. Also, microbiology has a 3 hour lab every week,
while genetics has a 3 hour lab every other week(and a seminar where you need to do textbook questions beforehand on the weeks that you don't have lab). I guess it seems like genetics would be the better choice, I'm just worried that it may be hard conceptually. I don't want it to affect my gpa.
The professor for microbiology I've never had before but she has a lower rating on ratemyprof. Also, microbiology has a 3 hour lab every week,
while genetics has a 3 hour lab every other week(and a seminar where you need to do textbook questions beforehand on the weeks that you don't have lab). I guess it seems like genetics would be the better choice, I'm just worried that it may be hard conceptually. I don't want it to affect my gpa.
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Genetics errytime.
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Genetics is very useful for the MCAT.
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It depends on your school. If microbiology is just based on memorization and is a relatively easy A (as it is in my school), while genetics actually is about understanding the material, then I would go genetics all the way. In addition, I think genetics is a very interesting field that you might not get another chance like this to explore. Genetics actually covers a lot of topics beyond Mendelian genetics (if you professor cares about teaching you really cool math stuff)- including topics like replication, transcription, cancer (again, depending on the professor), and a lot of things that will expand your knowledge while also allowing you to connect other science classes you've taken. It's difficult, but so worth it. Microbiology is pretty blah in my opinion- you learn some of that stuff in intro bio and can always learn it easily through a textbook or online.
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Genetics is wayyy more useful for MCAT. It's not just Mendelian genetics, but molecular genetics is usually covered in depth.
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My school split the lab and the lecture for both of the classes, but either way genetics really did help me on the MCAT, especially the molecular part. Micro was more interesting and easier to understand for sure but there weren't a lot of in depth problems for it. Also at my school they kind of overlapped in that in genetics they covered both prokaryotic and eukaryotic parts of genetics.
