Research?

[Noeljan]

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Hey everyone,
I was wondering how different types of research stacks up. I did Organic chemistry research all year, and still doing it this summer (on kinetics of certain amino acids with pyridoxal), 1 publication. Does this type of research look as good as more medical research (I do feel that chemistry is fundamental for advances in general)
What do you guys/girls think?

 

[IcedCube]

Hey everyone,
I was wondering how different types of research stacks up. I did Organic chemistry research all year, and still doing it this summer (on kinetics of certain amino acids with pyridoxal), 1 publication. Does this type of research look as good as more medical research (I do feel that chemistry is fundamental for advances in general)
What do you guys/girls think?

its nice, but i'm guessing a physician interviewing you will wont give two hoots about amino acid kinetics. hopefully you'll get lucky and interview with a PHD in orgo kinetics

 

[mikedc813]

I strongly doubt that what type of research you do affects your application. Your interviewer probably won't understand the details of your research anyways! I think more important is how involved you were in your research, and since you say you have 1 publication that is awesome. All they want to see if you putting a lot of time into something you really like doing, and it's not as important what that is. So you could research carboxylic acids or DNA and it's all the same. Don't sweat it, sounds like you're more than ok with your experience

 

[Neuronix]

I agree with mikedc813, and disagree with IcedCube. Sure a physician may not care about the specifics of your research, but it's impressive that you have done it. It's especially impressive if you say you want to continue with research and have an interest in academic medicine...

PS: Long time, no chat. Hope everything is going well!

 

[patzan]

Another vote for "it doesn't matter". Adcoms don't care what you do as long as you are deeply involved. You publication shows this, so good job. I did a lot of research as well, but told interviewers that it didn't interest me so much as to make a career out of it and they were fine with that.

 

[mikedc813]

I told my schools that I tried research for a little while, but it just didn't click with me. So I went hardcore into community service and directing an afterschool mentoring program for ESL students and they seemed impressed. So yeah do what you love. They'll get the message

 

[AlternateSome1]

Hey everyone,
I was wondering how different types of research stacks up. I did Organic chemistry research all year, and still doing it this summer (on kinetics of certain amino acids with pyridoxal), 1 publication. Does this type of research look as good as more medical research (I do feel that chemistry is fundamental for advances in general)
What do you guys/girls think?

I did O. Chem research and was asked about it during my interviews. One of my interviewers had been a chemistry major during his u-grad, but it didn't really matter since he couldn't really follow the specifics of what I was doing. The general point of research is to show intellectual curiousity and to demonstrate some knowledge of the research process. So, in short, any research is good.