UCLA people: Need ur help about difficulty of MCDB and Bio Majors

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justwant

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Hi.. im startin 3rd year at UCLA, taken almost all prereqs (4-5 more prereqs left). I have not taken any upperdivs .im currently torn between MCDB and Bio .

I have a pretty good gpa and very few ECs

I feel a little behind all of my 3rd yr premed peers (most people have only 1-2 prereqs left, I have like 4-5 left), so I was thinkin about a field biology quarter for bio (gets rid of 4 Upperdivs in one quarter) to get up to pace. However, it seems from bruinwalk that all the bio profs (in the EE Bio Dept) got really BAD reviews and give very few As out. Although I did fine in LS1 and the concepts weren't hard to understand (just a lot to memorize), I still feel i suck at this bird/ecology stuff, so I dont know about bio. I did good in LS3, but SUCK BIG TIME IN applying concepts and research techniques. I did find LS3 a little more interesting.

I feel like i would like MCDB, but I dont want to get my good GPA ruined (which is a big reason why I am staying AWAY from MIMG, Neurosci and Phy Sci). Both Bio and MCDB require 9 upper divs. I would like to have a little time left after studying to do some research

I am willing to take summer school both this year and next year

Which one do you think I should pick? Is MCDB harder than Bio? How would you rank Bio and MCDB in comparison to other LS majors?

thanks for your help.
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For UCLA, I recommend psychobiology. It's deemed the easier of all the science majors over there. I don't know too much about MCDB but biology is somewhat skewed. A lot of people do bio..so the likelyhood of people bitchin' about the major is a lot higher..so don't take much of what's on bruinwalk to heart.
 
thanks for the response..I can't do psychobio (its way too late for that and I heard it doesn't count in ur science gpa). I know bio has a lot of ppl, but when i look at the grade distributions its only like 15%As..other majors have much higher percentages of As

Anyone else have any input?
 
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i personally didnt find neuro to be that bad-- especially if you take the right electives. Maybe it was because I was really interested in it though
 
neuro is super hard and i have no interest in it.. im at this point only interested in bio or mcdb..my question is whether mcdb or bio is easier?
 
Bio is too broad. I would do physci or neuro. I heard UCLA opened up a new major: Human Bio I believe. That would be a much better choice than bio in my opinion.
 
CodeBlu said:
Ask Alexandra Wallace... she might be able to help a brother out.
Click to expand...

She didn't major in biology because it's impossible to have epiphanies like it is majoring in political science.
 
but i want to know about mcdb and the bio majors..im not interested in phy sci at all and i would never do phy sci
 
I suggest looking at all the MAJOR prereqs and see which courses you would be genuinely interested in learning about. Bruinwalk is accurate in professor reviews, but its up to your willingness to learn if you want to be ahead in the grading scheme.
 
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The prereqs for all Life science majors are the same...anyone else? any UCLA students have any input on this?
 
I vote for MIMG; I was a transfer and chose it since I didn't know about it being hard... but after sticking with it, I didn't really find it all that challenging. Immunology was tough no doubt.... but the rest weren't really that bad and the teachers are awesome.

Not to mention Bridget (the UnderGrad Advisor) rocks.
 
I was a physci major at UCLA and I took MCDB 138 as one of my electives.
I know I can't speak on behalf of MCDB since I've only taken one class, but compared to physci, I felt the curve was A LOT more lenient.
Although the content was really in depth and there were lots of details to know for the midterm, I felt like the exams were fair (unlike physci).

If you are interested in molecular biology (LS3 stuff), I would recommend MCDB
 
I took three MCDB courses and yeah, I will admit MIMG is waaaay harder, but more worth it.
 
anyone have any experience takin any EEBio classes? were they hard or easy?
 
bio looks like an "electives only" major. there is no coherence in regard to the upper div requirements.

mcdb seems more relevant and more interesting. and easy enough. i've heard 138 is the easiest upper div.
 
No don't do that. Just transfer over to Berkeley and do our MCB program. It's better than weed😀
 
givin this a nice bump

want to hear about EEBio Classes
 
if I were to choose i would go with mcdb for two reasons - its more interesting and is more specific than bio. In bio classes you will be memorizing species names of birds and fishes, i wouldnt find that exciting. MCDB on the other hand was something i debated about myself, but ended up chosing phy sci (and loved it)

edit: about the difficulty - mcdb definitely tougher. BUT choose the one that will be more interesting to you. Personally, I get better grades in classes i like even tho they might be harder!

good luck
GO BRUINS!!!!
 
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yea i would do sociology, BUT I CANT i want my sci gpa to be salvagable if it goes south. lol the number of their prereqs plus upperdivs doesnt even equal the number of premed prereqs..unfortunately my ECs are a little on the weak side and I've heard that they expect a little more ECs from ppl who are non-sciences.

yea I'm a little worried about mcdb being so difficult that it isn't even worth it..any mcdb majors and bio majors responses would be greatly appreciated
 
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misslala said:
if I were to choose i would go with mcdb for two reasons - its more interesting and is more specific than bio. In bio classes you will be memorizing species names of birds and fishes, i wouldnt find that exciting. MCDB on the other hand was something i debated about myself, but ended up chosing phy sci (and loved it)

edit: about the difficulty - mcdb definitely tougher. BUT choose the one that will be more interesting to you. Personally, I get better grades in classes i like even tho they might be harder!

good luck
GO BRUINS!!!!
Click to expand...

unfortuantely for me, ucla takes the fun out of learning
 
Head over to CollegeConfidential...I'm pretty sure you could get a better response turnout.
 
I would just choose whichever you find more interesting. If you don't know, then search the course listings on the registrar page and the major page to see specifically which classes you're going to take. I don't think the difference in difficulty is going to be that huge.
 
As a entering senior at UCLA, I have seen friends struggle in both Bio and MCDB. The only difference was the people in Bio hated what they were learning. It was all useless info like in LS1 where you had to memorize the different phylums. On the other hand, although MCDB is tough, my friends found their classes interesting. Its also much easier to do well in a class you're interested so...

I would say MCDB.

PhySci FTW!
 
OP listen up:

I'm going into my 4th year as UCLA neuro, and everything you read is going to be entirely subjective to the person telling you. I picked neuro because I HATE molecular bio. To me it's just memorizing steps and abbreviations. To someone else it's awesome.

It's UCLA. It's going to be hard for most people. Any South Campus major is going to be rather difficult, especially when all of the aforementioned majors are 80% premeds. Deal with it. Pick what you like because that's what you're going to mind studying the least when it's crunch time and you're going hours into the night. Most UCLA science classes cutoff at 15% A's with obvious exceptions and electives here and there.

Do what you like because that's what you'll do well in. But my personal thoughts: Neuro and Phy Sci are pretty much the exact same (same format, structure, core-series thing, etc) and are gunner city. MCDB is in the middle. Psychobio kids have the easiest time but there are more of them than anyone so you don't see it as much, especially when your classes have regular Psych majors mixed in. Have fun. Work hard. Good luck.
 
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