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A few things:
[ol]
[<em>] Biology is my son’s second major. His primary major is CS.
[</em>] Pre-requisites didn’t bring him close to a Biology major. JHU suggests kids with AP credit to simply do Cell Bio with lab and Genetics/Dev Bio with lab. Obviously, a Biology major needs a lot more than that (32 credits of Biology for BA and 40 for a BS). He did advanced courses in Genetics, Microbiology, Enzymes etc., before figuring out he was close.
[li] Biology as primary major may not give you the best plan B.[/li][/ol]
Most of my son’s research was in Computer-aided Surgery and Medical Robotics (he did some gene sequencing work in the Biology dept. also). They did some really interesting stuff like calibration and real-time control of scull drilling robots etc… Hopkins CS department and JHU SoM work very closely in that area. He actually got a first author publication and also presented their work at a medical robotics conference in San Diego. His hope is that he can continue that at med school also…</p>
<p>However, their tech startup is a whole another story. The system they built relates to the field of public health. It is getting a lot of attention. At the moment their company is surviving on hand offs from JHU and freeloading and/or cheap cloud services. Some venture capitalists are recommending them to embark on road shows and take it to silicon valley. The two key players (my son and another guy who is matriculating into med school this year) are pre-meds. They are really conflicted as to what to do with it. One idea is to partner with kids form some west coast schools like Berkeley.</p>