<p>What 300 and 400-level BCPM courses are useful and worthwhile to take?
I’m interested in taking some of the following courses during 3rd and 4th year:</p>
<p>BIO 302-Genetic Analysis
BIO 303-Microbiology (I heard this one is notorious for being boring, but is it really?)
BIO 305-Animal Physiology
BIO 357-Gene Cloning
BIO 407-Cell Physiology</p>
<p>CHEM 332-The Chemistry of Transition Metals
CHEM 333-Inorganic Chemistry of Biological Processes
CHEM 340-Materials Chemistry
CHEM 360-Thermodynamics and Chemical Kinetics
CHEM 381-Orgo 3
CHEM 455-Orgo 4
CHEM 465-Electrochemistry</p>
<p>MATH 302-Calculus 3
MATH 308-Linear Optimization
MATH 310-Intro to Ordinary Differential Equations
MATH 341-Algebra 3
MATH 408-Discrete Optimization</p>
<p>Okay. Some of these are required for medical school applications, so you should take those. Animal phys and Cell Phys are MCAT helpful. Micro is useful for medical school itself.</p>
<p>The bio courses are the only ones on the list that would not be a waste of time.</p>
<p>If you need to take more upper level BCPM courses, I would put more stock into finding one with a great professor than i would necessarily put into the content of the class.</p>
<p>Diff eq is a really easy class. And its name makes it look rigorous. Calc 3 is a bit harder as you’ll need some 3d spacial reasoning. But if you have facility with derivatives and integrals, you should be fine. </p>
<p>Don’t take quantum or realtivity because those are really hard classes(senior/grad level physics).</p>
<p>I found my microbio class anything but boring. I loved the class, and I keep running into situations where I use information from the class, even months after I took it.</p>
<p>We can’t pick for you because we don’t go to your school. At some schools, genetics is taught well. At some schools, it’s taught poorly. At some schools, microbio is an easy course. At some schools, it’s not.</p>
<p>In terms of subject matter, I’d suggest taking animal physiology. Otherwise, ask the students at your school.</p>
<p>IF you are a biochem major you will take all the required premed courses anyway. Beyond that, pick based on your interests. You really do not need science beyond the requirements. If you want things that will be useful in medicine, the more biochem is always helpful. Some physical biochem (not physcial chemistry) is useful- it helps you understand protein configurations, drug and receptor binding, and such. None of the chem courses you listed would be useful in medicine, but you should take them if you like chem.</p>
<p>Same for the math and physics. You will not use them in medicine, but that is not the only criterion for picking courses. Some probability and statistics would come in very handy. In fact, more than one stat course could be helpful. It is nice to know something about non parametrics, time series and survival analysis, ANOVA…</p>
<p>But you will practice medicine for the rest of your life. For now, take some courses that you will find interesting or that will let you do some interesting research.</p>