"Major" Advice(Comp sci --> Bio)

[Rosiv]

I haven?t been doing too well at my current major, computer science. I spent 3-4 years total on it so far, with only about 50% progress towards my BS in computer science. The course work has just been getting too hard for me to do without constant help, which i don't really feel like asking, for a computer science who cant really do any projects on their own kind of defeats the point, IMO.

I was thinking of changing to be a Biology major. I can handle the biology course work, although the chemistry classes worry me. Im also wondering what opportunities a Bio major has in the job field. I read its either research /med school/teaching, and teaching/med school seem uninteresting, where as research seems maybe over my head, although working in a lab sounds really cool.

As for what type of student i am, i guess im in between slacker and hard worker. I didnt sleep in any of my classes, but i feel i can always work a bit harder, aside from the computer science part.

Just hoping for some general advice, cause i know the Computer science isnt working out for me.

TLDR: Computer science is too hard, thinking of Biology Major, need advice.

 

[Comocat]

Have you consider bioinformatics? A major shift in biological research is moving from the wet lab to the computer lab. We have more genetic code then we know what to do with at the moment and writing code is a big part of that.

Super-resolution imaging is also highly dependent on computer algorithms to compile data. You might try looking into research around optics.

There are certainly employment jobs as a lab manager, usually those people have a Masters degree in their field.

There is no shame in asking for help, the people who screwed in the long run are the ones who coasted because their course work was easy, and didnt learn anything in college. I'd hesitate to advise you to switch to biology because its "easier."

 

[Rosiv]

Have you consider bioinformatics? A major shift in biological research is moving from the wet lab to the computer lab. We have more genetic code then we know what to do with at the moment and writing code is a big part of that.

Super-resolution imaging is also highly dependent on computer algorithms to compile data. You might try looking into research around optics.

There are certainly employment jobs as a lab manager, usually those people have a Masters degree in their field.

There is no shame in asking for help, the people who screwed in the long run are the ones who coasted because their course work was easy, and didnt learn anything in college. I'd hesitate to advise you to switch to biology because its "easier."

Well when i meant Comp sci was harder, it was that given my experience taking the entrance level course in computer science and the entrance level course in Biology. Computer science was something notably harder, for you cant really "study" the topics. I struggled so much in my intro class to comp sci, that people thought i was actually "high" because i spent whole lab periods just not making any progress, and that was WITH asking for help. At least for Biology if i dont understand anything,like the C02 cycle, i can read the text, i never really encountered that same experience in a comp sci class, for when writing a computer program alot of things can go askew.

And as for asking for help, I'm just sick of it, i have asked for help constantly, and i don't think it really improved my skills any. And given that i need help on this first part of the assignment during this semester,and that i should be able to do, it just really speaks to my lack of potential in this area.

As for those jobs you posted above, i don't think i have a future writing code sadly, and as with algorithms, my math skills are weak as well, i couldn't even get my Associates in computer science due to my failing math classes. The lab manager sounds interesting though. You seem very knowledgeable in this field, and I appreciated your input, care to share more?

 

[raeior]

If the chemistry classes worry you, you should really think twice about biology because it is a huge part of it (although it quite depends on the field you end up in). Math and physics are also important although to a lesser degree than chemistry (again extremely dependent on your field of work). On the other hand, if learning and reading into stuff is

Another thing is: How tolerant are you to frustration? Because lab work means lots and lots of frustration because 99% of the time your stuff won't work and usually you have no clear idea why. Makes the 1% all the sweeter but it's not for everyone I guess. I'm not sure how the studies are organized where you are from but here you have 6 months at the end of the bachelor studies were you work on a topic chosen by your professor by yourself and some people realize than that they aren't really that tolerant to lab work and the frustration it brings.

Also: lab work. It usually doesn't involve boiling stuff in 100 different colours or anything TV loves to show when it tries to show "science". Quite a bit of the actual work is repetitive and not that "fun" to do. On the other hand, if you work out your theory and all the pieces start falling together and you can prove that you were right..thats awesome! A colleague who brought his cousin to work told us that his cousin remarked "But that's robot work!" and it kind of is.

As for job perspectives: You can of course stay with a university and do research. Companies are obviously also doing research, for example optimizing enzymes for specific uses or trying to develop new analysis techniques. Marketing is also a possibility (although one I would never ever want to take part in) which can mean for example driving around the land and trying to sell your awesome to labs. Another big area is quality management for example in the food industry. Checking products for contamination, making sure the organisms used in the production are still the organisms they are supposed to be or even optimizing them.
Medical research would also be a big topic of course. There are also of course higher positions like Comocat said, where you do not necessarily participate directly in the lab work but direct it toward some goal. In Germany you typically need a PHD for the higher positions but not in every case. With the bachelor alone you are typically some kind of lab assistant doing the practical work.

Especially the frustration part might sound more negative than it's supposed to be. I absolutely love my field of work and I would study biology again if given the choice. It's just not for everyone I guess (but what is..?).

 

[Rosiv]

If the chemistry classes worry you, you should really think twice about biology because it is a huge part of it (although it quite depends on the field you end up in). Math and physics are also important although to a lesser degree than chemistry (again extremely dependent on your field of work). On the other hand, if learning and reading into stuff is

Another thing is: How tolerant are you to frustration? Because lab work means lots and lots of frustration because 99% of the time your stuff won't work and usually you have no clear idea why. Makes the 1% all the sweeter but it's not for everyone I guess. I'm not sure how the studies are organized where you are from but here you have 6 months at the end of the bachelor studies were you work on a topic chosen by your professor by yourself and some people realize than that they aren't really that tolerant to lab work and the frustration it brings.

Also: lab work. It usually doesn't involve boiling stuff in 100 different colours or anything TV loves to show when it tries to show "science". Quite a bit of the actual work is repetitive and not that "fun" to do. On the other hand, if you work out your theory and all the pieces start falling together and you can prove that you were right..thats awesome! A colleague who brought his cousin to work told us that his cousin remarked "But that's robot work!" and it kind of is.

As for job perspectives: You can of course stay with a university and do research. Companies are obviously also doing research, for example optimizing enzymes for specific uses or trying to develop new analysis techniques. Marketing is also a possibility (although one I would never ever want to take part in) which can mean for example driving around the land and trying to sell your awesome to labs. Another big area is quality management for example in the food industry. Checking products for contamination, making sure the organisms used in the production are still the organisms they are supposed to be or even optimizing them.
Medical research would also be a big topic of course. There are also of course higher positions like Comocat said, where you do not necessarily participate directly in the lab work but direct it toward some goal. In Germany you typically need a PHD for the higher positions but not in every case. With the bachelor alone you are typically some kind of lab assistant doing the practical work.

Especially the frustration part might sound more negative than it's supposed to be. I absolutely love my field of work and I would study biology again if given the choice. It's just not for everyone I guess (but what is..?).

Well its not that im frustrated, i just literally cant do the work in computer science,literally. I honestly don't know what to do, i mean, i wasn't the best student, but i guess being the bottom of my class, and transferring from a community college didn't really help me. I'm "functional" in math, i mean, i don't mind any type of rote work, just as long as i can do it. Where as in Biology, i mean i can study and learn things, i miss being able to do that, heck i can even study and learn things in my Math classes, its computer science that has this weird disconnect from the classroom to the work, or at least that is how I feel.

The chemistry part i guess i might need work in, i need to take regular chemistry and organic. I heard Organic is really hard, but ive taken high school level chemistry, and ive done fine in it, so i dont think organic will be horrible as long as i apply myself.

I dunno, for my computer science degree i had to take a required science class, and instead of going the physics route, since i already took a algebra based physics class, i decided to take a Micro/Macro Biology class, for people entering the Biology major. Im kind of enjoying it, i mean ive taken something equivalent in high school long ago, so this isnt the first time ive done the subject, but for the most part im getting good grades. My proffesor does outdoors research i believe, and that sounds interesting i guess, i always figured id be better suited indoors though, since im kind of a shut in.

Thanks for all your help, i really do appricate people who have a personal lenses into the field can give their input.Also, could you go into detail about being a lab assistant? It sounds interesting, or any classes that would be a boon to me.

And i think you got cut off in your first paragraph where you said

On the other hand, if learning and reading into stuff is

 

[raeior]

Whoops. It was supposed to be something like if reading into stuff is not a problem for you then chemistry won't be that hard. It takes quite a bit of learning but it's not impossible .
Organic chemistry is pretty tough because there is a lot of stuff you have to memorize, but it really really helps later on in your day to day lab work. It's mostly a problem for people saying "omg why do I need chemistry i'm studying biology!!!" like some of the other students in my grade did. The same for math and physics. Math is mostly statistics, algebra and arithmetics. So from what you're writing I'm pretty sure you'd be fine.

Lab assistants mostly do the practical work in the lab. That can mean anything from doing routine analysis of medical samples for multi-resistant bacteria to preparing and analyzing samples via liquid or gas chromatography, preparing media or solutions for other experiments. So basically the day to day routine work in a lab. In our lab it's a mixture between helping us PHD students and doing some (albeit smaller) topics on their own. They typically have the best knowledge of the lab equipment and it's always wise to stay on their good side

As for classes to recommend: Basically do what interests you most. For me it was pretty clear from the beginning that I wanted to do microbiology so I took courses like polyphasic taxonomy (identifying bacteria using a variety of methods) or a fermentation course where we used organisms like Escherichia coli to produce stuff like bioplastic on a 2 L to 500 L scale which is pretty awesome. During the bachelor we had a mandatory microbiology course that covered the basics of working with a variety of bacteria and other microorganisms.
We generally had a lot of stuff as mandatory courses (at least during the bachelor studies, the master was basically choose what you like) so you got a look into most of the different areas before specializing further down the road.
Besides microbiology I found plant biotech pretty interesting and it's a nice change to actually see what your experiments do without using a microscope.

Glad to be of help!

 

[Rosiv]

Whoops. It was supposed to be something like if reading into stuff is not a problem for you then chemistry won't be that hard. It takes quite a bit of learning but it's not impossible .
Organic chemistry is pretty tough because there is a lot of stuff you have to memorize, but it really really helps later on in your day to day lab work. It's mostly a problem for people saying "omg why do I need chemistry i'm studying biology!!!" like some of the other students in my grade did. The same for math and physics. Math is mostly statistics, algebra and arithmetics. So from what you're writing I'm pretty sure you'd be fine.

Lab assistants mostly do the practical work in the lab. That can mean anything from doing routine analysis of medical samples for multi-resistant bacteria to preparing and analyzing samples via liquid or gas chromatography, preparing media or solutions for other experiments. So basically the day to day routine work in a lab. In our lab it's a mixture between helping us PHD students and doing some (albeit smaller) topics on their own. They typically have the best knowledge of the lab equipment and it's always wise to stay on their good side

As for classes to recommend: Basically do what interests you most. For me it was pretty clear from the beginning that I wanted to do microbiology so I took courses like polyphasic taxonomy (identifying bacteria using a variety of methods) or a fermentation course where we used organisms like Escherichia coli to produce stuff like bioplastic on a 2 L to 500 L scale which is pretty awesome. During the bachelor we had a mandatory microbiology course that covered the basics of working with a variety of bacteria and other microorganisms.
We generally had a lot of stuff as mandatory courses (at least during the bachelor studies, the master was basically choose what you like) so you got a look into most of the different areas before specializing further down the road.
Besides microbiology I found plant biotech pretty interesting and it's a nice change to actually see what your experiments do without using a microscope.

Glad to be of help!

I see, that is awesome. I think plants are cool, always curious about them, and i do want a better understanding of microbiology, for when i took it in high-school i never understood the genetic part well, I feel like getting my chemistry up to snuff would do it. Thanks I feel a lot better about changing my major now.

 

[renegade7]

Coursework:

Fair amount of chemistry in addition to biology. There will also be a fair amount of math you need to do with a particular emphasis on statistics. Calculus will also be relevant as it relates to biophysics and population modeling. Lots of lab work.

Jobs:

Well, if you want to be a biologist you're more than likely going to need a graduate education, ie Master's or higher. A CS background might be good support based on how often computer moseling is used by scientists of all fields. But this means you're going to need to kick ass in your academics and start looking for research opportunities at your current school.