Don’t really know what this would go under but I have a question.
Okay, so, I’ve always been into biology to some extent, and more recently physics in general, but recently (like two years ago) I learned about quantum biology. I was kind of noodling around with Google, looking for stuff on my interest in biology, when I started looking into the biophysics aspect of it, and eventually I found quantum biology, which is basically the intersection between quantum physics and biology. I’ve stuck with it for the past couple of years and it still interests me even though I don’t understand everything about it (like I get what they’re talking about to an extent but only part of the way). It’s not really a field yet, but I keep up with it and look for articles and papers on it every few months. I want to pursue this further in college/university, but I don’t really know what that’d go under. I’m currently an 11th grader in high school and I’m doing pretty good for myself but there’s a big chance I’ll do two years of community college then transfer to a UC or something like that (coming from California).
Anywho, I’m assuming this would just go under physics right? Like as a major? I mean it’s not really a thing yet so it might fit under molecular biology? I’m not really sure what to aim for but I just want to know if there’s something specific that would work better or if there’s a set path anyone knows about. If not I’ll probably just go for physics.
Maybe this will help to start in case no one responds. It could be schools have offerings and you’d have to talk to them and dig deeper. I put the link at the bottom.
One time I was starting a round of radiation treatments (which so far seems to have worked very well), and happened to mention that I used to work at a cyclotron. Well the physicist that worked at the health center decided to come out and chat. Who would have known that a radiation treatment facility would have a physicist on staff?
We discussed some specific subatomic particles (muons and pions – not prions, which are something completely different) and various types of particle accelerators and various types of radiation that could be used to treat cancer, and the corresponding plusses and minuses.
I got the impression that he had a pretty deep knowledge of biology, and also a pretty deep knowledge of physics, including at least special relativity and electricity and magnetism and some particle physics. My guess is that some math would also be needed (at least up through multivariate calculus and linear algebra and probability and statistics, very possibly more than this).
I would expect that you could study a combination of physics and biology, plus some math, and figure this out over time. I do not think that this is something that you rush into. Instead, you have a lot to learn and you learn it gradually over time, one course at a time, making sure to get a solid and fairly broad background.
This does seem like an area of interest where some form of graduate degree is possible. When the time comes budget accordingly (for example, try not to use up the entire college budget for a bachelor’s degree as much as is reasonably possible).
I have known a few people who ended up working in some form of high tech field that did not exist at the time that they were in university. Yes, they get a broad relevant education, major in something that seems related but taking courses in more than one area, then get an appropriate job and figure it out over time. This sort of thing usually does not happen quickly.
This would Likely be a Biophysics major with a lot of math. If a biophysics major doesn’t exist as such at the colleges you’d apply to, Physics with a lot of Math + Biology courses of interest would do the trick.
I might view quantum biology slightly differently, as the application of quantum physics to biology. To align with the quantitative aspects of quantum mechanics, I believe your best undergraduate foundation would also be inherently quantitative. As a primary major, I’d recommend physics, to which I’d add extensive mathematics. Courses, in chemistry, particularly physical chemistry, biochemistry and biology will also be of importance. Nonetheless, I suggest you remain flexible, in that your interests may evolve as you become exposed to progressively deeper topics.
Like others have suggested, this seems like the sort of thing that you would really specialize in during grad school, so undergrad would be about getting the foundations in both Physics and Bio you would want.
You can probably do that almost anywhere with good natural science departments, which is a lot of places. But to make it easier, you could look for actual structured programs in Biophysics, or similar. And if not that, look for a general curriculum structure that makes rigorous dual majors easier.
Like, for example, open curriculums or (much more common) light forms of distributional requirements can make rigorous dual majors easier.
This is very down in the weeds, but some places also do high-quality BAs in Bio, versus just high-quality BS degrees in Bio. Like this is sort of random, but my S24 is a dual major in Bio and Classics at WashU, and actually all their Bio degrees are BAs. And they have a lot of funky concentration options (he is doing Genomics and Computational Biology):
Obviously that is just one college, but hopefully you get the idea–if you add colleges like this to the list (along with those that have an actual Biophysics major or minor or concentration or such), you will get a lot more choices.
