Most Useful and least useful Science Course you have taken?

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Knicks17

Knicks17

"First Pakistani-American Surgeon General?"
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What is the most useful Science class you have taken (except for Biochem) for the mcat/med school?
In retrospect what is the least useful science course you have taken in UG?

Really interested in what you guys say!
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Not yet in med school so I can only speak for the MCAT.

Most useful: General chemistry, for both the content and being a crash course in how to learn lots of (challenging) material quickly.
Least: I had a required neuroscience class that was mostly just memorizing the names of brain regions. Useless.

Some of the best classes I had in college were not in the sciences at all though. Everyone should take a few philosophy or other humanities classes - learning about what makes art beautiful or what archaeology tells us about Troy is what college should be about!
 
Hey congrats on your acceptance! Hopefully ill be in your place one day, if you don't mind was was your mcat percentile?
 
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Knicks17 said:
Hey congrats on your acceptance! Hopefully ill be in your place one day, if you don't mind was was your mcat percentile?
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99.9th percentile, but I attribute that to things other than the specific science classes I took! How you prepare for the test and your studying from MCAT-specific prep books matters a lot more than your university courses. Check out the MCAT subforum for a wealth of threads about good study practices.
 
Least useful was Plant Ecology. Most useful is really up for debate.


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most useful: o-chem lab (for lab techniques)

least useful: bio1 (ecology and talking about hardy-weinberg for 4 weeks).
 
theonlytycrane said:
most useful: o-chem lab (for lab techniques)

least useful: bio1 (ecology and talking about hardy-weinberg for 4 weeks).
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Is there not a lot of hardy weinburg questions on the mcat? a lot of the questions of the days are based around those from various websites
 
I thought all of my upper div bio courses were helpful in prepping for MCAT because the textbooks and journal articles we had to read for class were much more similar to MCAT passages. It helped me with reading/thinking critically and analytically.

least useful : Holocene Paleoecology (should've known it's cross-listed with anthro)
 
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For what it's worth ...

The most useful two undergraduate science courses for me were: Biochemistry and Neuroscience.

The most useful non-science course for me was: Introduction to Logic and Critical Reasoning (offered in the Department of Philosophy at my ug).
 
Most Useful Science: Biochemistry
Least Useful Science: Animal Diversity Lab (BIO2 Lab)

Most Useful Non Science:

TIE:

"Science in the 21st Century" - despite the name, it wasn't a traditional Science class but rather a dissection of how scientific advance has progressed. It was taught by a Nobel Laureate and he really drove us to delve deep into problems and really understand the application of their answers.

and

"Music, Meditation and Healing" - an honors seminar led by a Anthromusicologist/lauded Jazz musician where we meditated, discussed mindfulness and learned to embrace the diversity of the world around us.


Long story short: take classes that are going to make you a well rounded person
 
Most useful: Eukaryotic Molecular biology, took it while studying for the MCAT and it literally covered most of biochem AND biology for the MCAT. I literally did not study for the biology section outside of this (due to time/work contstraints) and it worked out pretty well. (of course I probably should have done more review on other non-biochem stuff but still)

Least useful: Biophysics (while interesting, did very little for me MCAT wise and mostly was just running CS simulations)
 
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Most useful: adv biochem + organic structure determination (taught me how to think outside the box)

Least useful: bio 1 & ecology (both made me hate bio until I took some interesting upper level electives)
 
Most useful (to MCAT and life in general): A seminar class on cancer, where we read journal articles and eval'd them. The class taught me so much about telling good research from bad, being skeptical of everything you read, and experimental design, and critical thinking in general.

Least useful: a personality psych class with a Freudian psychologist, who kept telling our class of hundreds of undergrads that we were sexually repressed. Yep. That's really all there is to say about that.
 
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Intresting whats your guys opinion about genetics/immuno?
 
Knicks17 said:
Intresting whats your guys opinion about genetics/immuno?
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Immuno wasn't necessarily super helpful for the MCAT (don't know about med school yet, though I do know the textbook we used is the go-to for med schools), but it was absolutely one of the most interesting classes I took in undergrad

EDIT: the genetics stuff on the MCAT was covered in intro bio, but it was an interesting class
 
Knicks17 said:
What is the most useful Science class you have taken (except for Biochem) for the mcat/med school?
In retrospect what is the least useful science course you have taken in UG?

Really interested in what you guys say!
Click to expand...

Most useful: anatomy during physical therapy school, basically helped me score 97 percentile on the anatomy shelve exam as an MS-1...I wish I had taken Biochem, that was a struggle for me
Least useful: Would say physics (useless in med school) but needed for mcat
 
Most Useful: Cell Biology (Created the lightbulb moment for me. in regards to science and medicine. The professor also mentored me a lot along the way)
Least Useful: Ecology
 
ITT: People not following the prompt
 
Most useful:
Biostats & Organic Chem (teaches you to reason in 3 dimensions in your head)

Least useful:
Calculus.
 
Word I said "EXECPT BIOCHEM" we know its useful, its ambiogusly a big part of the MCAT
 
Knicks17 said:
Word I said "EXECPT BIOCHEM" we know its useful, its ambiogusly a big part of the MCAT
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You also specified that "most useful" was limited to the scope of the MCAT and med school, not just everyday life.
 
Most useful I'm guessing: histology, biochem, immunology, anatomy

Leas: physics, ochem, gen Chem, all pre reqs

I don't think it matters though, I'm going to have to re learn everything
 
I heard Physiology is really important class, surprised no one mentioned that
 
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Most useful (other than biochem): Cell/Molecular Biology or O-chem; also, def try to take a biochem lab if your UG offers it.
Least useful (for the mcat): Animal Diversity biology
 
Most useful class for mcat: Biochem 1
Least useful for mcat: none really, they all kind of help but probably one of the intro labs.

Most useful science course in terms of what I feel I got out of it / learned: Synthetic biology or Systems Biology and Bioinformatics.

Least useful science course on those terms: Physics labs. Pointless.
 
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Most Useful: Physics- the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are pretty much all physics, as are many other medical school concepts. Biochem is a close second.

Last useful: Organic chemistry- it just isn't very useful in comparison to the other subjects, and the useful parts of it could be conveyed in a two hour lecture.
 
vm26 said:
Least useful: Would say physics (useless in med school) but needed for mcat
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Mad Jack said:
Most Useful: Physics- the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are pretty much all physics, as are many other medical school concepts. Biochem is a close second.
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well this is interesting. probably school specific but pretty sure physiology can be described in terms of physical principles. could be wrong though
 
Lawper said:
well this is interesting. probably school specific but pretty sure physiology can be described in terms of physical principles. could be wrong though
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Physics puts the phys in physiology. Every single pulmonary and cardiac equation you do is just a repurposed basic physics equation.
RogueBanana said:
I'm personally offended.
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I enjoyed organic chemistry, but literally the only things you get out of it are understanding how very similar drugs can have different properties. Most every other major concept is brought over from general chem.
 
Least useful: Ecology.

Least useful I expected to be useful: Microbiology.

Most useful: Immunology and Cell Biology.
 
Most useful: all seminar-style classes that taught me how to read the literature (many grad courses are like this)

Least useful: quantum mechanics
 
For the mcat:
Most useful - cell biology
Least useful - anatomy because it was freaking hard and I didn't use it at all
I think I'll probably use anatomy a ton in med school though.
 
RogueBanana said:
Most useful:
Biostats & Organic Chem (teaches you to reason in 3 dimensions in your head)

Least useful:
Calculus.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's because I'm a math guy, but I think the reasoning you learn through the calc series is great for science courses in general and for standardized tests. You have to generalize it beyond calc problems though, which many people have trouble doing apparently.
 
Knicks17 said:
What is the most useful Science class you have taken (except for Biochem) for the mcat/med school?
In retrospect what is the least useful science course you have taken in UG?

Really interested in what you guys say!
Click to expand...
Biochemistry was very helpful on the MCAT.

Hehehe.

Also, cell biology, genetics, and physiology.

Haven't started med school yet.
 
The most uselss class I have taken in my 2 years is biostats
 
Knicks17 said:
The most uselss class I have taken in my 2 years is biostats
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Are you... are you serious? Knowing how to interpret data in a medical study has helped me SO much and I think knowing that will help me in med school too
 
freak7 said:
Are you... are you serious? Knowing how to interpret data in a medical study has helped me SO much and I think knowing that will help me in med school too
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I've never taken a single course in statistics and I certainly didn't feel like I needed it on the MCAT... hopefully I won't get left behind in med school haha
 
freak7 said:
Are you... are you serious? Knowing how to interpret data in a medical study has helped me SO much and I think knowing that will help me in med school too
Click to expand...

My professor was pretty bad and boring, he made me hate going to that class and making me retain no useful information
 
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