Neuro Advanced Writing: BCPM course?

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So to fulfill my advanced writing requirement my major (neuroscience) requires me to take a class, "Neuro-316", titled "Neuroscience advanced writing" with the description "Processes of research writing and oral presentation for neuroscience students."

Would this be counted as a 'science' course because of the 'neuro' prefix, or does the course description make it non-science?

I ask because I've read conflicting reports about what determines whether or not a class falls into your BCPM category. Is there a 'gold standard' by which you can always know or are classes just looked at subjectively by somebody at AMCAS?

What about a class Psych-370, Sensation and Perception, that covers both the psychological and neurobiological aspects of the different senses?

 

[Web MD]

Haha you wish - I'd bet heavily against either one counting as BCPM. The first is likely a lit credit and the second one is probably a psych credit. Check with your advisors, but unless it has BIO in the prefix it's just another general elective

 

[taylormade2006]

You classify your courses based on the main content of the course. A writing course will go under English/Composition and the Psych course is a behavioral sciences course.

 

[Kuune]

I find for a lot of psych classes, it's easy to argue as a BCPM course. All of my psych classes were neuroscience courses, and I counted them as biology. If you felt the class was more heavily about the mechanisms of the sensory systems, you can call it neuro and count it as BCPM. If it was more behavioral, then it's behavioral sciences.

 

[empty p orbital]

I find for a lot of psych classes, it's easy to argue as a BCPM course. All of my psych classes were neuroscience courses, and I counted them as biology. If you felt the class was more heavily about the mechanisms of the sensory systems, you can call it neuro and count it as BCPM. If it was more behavioral, then it's behavioral sciences.

I didn't think the writing class would count, but I've heard some people say "if it has a science prefix, it goes to your science gpa" so I was curious.

The "psych" one on the other hand was definitely more science and biology than psychology. We were tested on fairly in-depth details about eye/ear/tongue/nose/skin anatomy and especially the neuronal pathways describing first how the receptors are stimulated and then how signals are propagated to the brain stem/spinal cord and to which part of the thalamus they pass on their way to their appropriate cortical regions. The class is part of the neuroscience major curriculum, even though it is technically taught in the psych department (but the prof was a neuro guy, not a pysch guy).

If what I heard about prefixes was true, I thought it would be dumb that my neuro writing class gets counted while the "sensation/perception" class does not.

Haha you wish - I'd bet heavily against either one counting as BCPM. The first is likely a lit credit and the second one is probably a psych credit. Check with your advisors, but unless it has BIO in the prefix it's just another general elective

Like I said, I wasn't really wishing, just wondering. I also doubted that either would count, but as I was thinking about it, I decided to post to see if someone could tell me what the official standard was to decide and just use those two classes as examples.

So who makes the final decision about these things and what standard do they use to make that call? Do I have any say in it when I apply?

 

[Kuune]

Wait, is your neuro writing class officially a psych class or a writing class on your transcript? Just having neuro in the course name does not make it a neuro class. Go by the subject matter actually covered. My own standard was if there was a decent amount of anatomy/molecular topics covered in the course, it went towards the BCPM.

 

[empty p orbital]

Wait, is your neuro writing class officially a psych class or a writing class on your transcript? Just having neuro in the course name does not make it a neuro class. Go by the subject matter actually covered. My own standard was if there was a decent amount of anatomy/molecular topics covered in the course, it went towards the BCPM.

It is Neuro 316: Neuroscience Advanced Writing. It is for neuroscience majors only. I haven't taken it yet, but from the course description and people I've talked to it is basically reading lots of published neuroscience articles, analyzing them, writing and then presenting reports on them. While you get exposed to a lot of science stuff, the primary objective of the class is not content mastery of the articles, but to be able to analyze/write/report effectively and professionally to an academic audience.

I do not think this should count as a 'science' course, but I was curious about it since it was classified as a "neuro" class and not an "english" class.

 

[Dr Mario]

I took a neuroscience based writing course and classified it as biology. However the course I took was heavily researched based, where students designed and carried out independent research projects (with cockroaches). At the end of the course a final research paper was due.