eeee1923

Most of the west coast large universities (caltech, UC berkeley, stanford, etc.) have some pretty high ranked programs. Some others to consider are some of the Texas schools (A&M, Austin, etc). When you say molecular biology you may want to try some of the umbrella programs since the drug discovery would tend to be more biology focused than chemistry (you could try Purdue MCMP - which sounds like what you may like). I know WashU has a good computational bio program. From what you've stated, I am not quite sure what areas you actually want to try since these programs are very different than one another. Go to pubmed and look up some of these topics and then look up the institutes associated with the authors - this would be a more effective way of putting together a list of programs you would like to apply to.

fruit salad

You may want to specify what subfields within chemistry you're aiming for. Also as an international applicant you need to get your Writing score 4+ to be considered at some of the more competitive US programs.

Good luck with your endeavors. I was also an engineering student for my first degree before switching to chemistry for my MS (though I came from the chemical engineering side of things so I had some of the prerequisites done + I double majored in chem so it wasn't too much of a transition). Here are some of the books I used during my undergrad (I just included the authors): Organic Chemistry: - Leroy Wade (7th & 8th Editions) - One of the best intro level o-chem books I've ever read (I still referenced it when I took my advanced and synthetic o-chem classes) - John McCurry (7th Edition) - Good reference Analytical Chemistry: - Daniel Harris (8th Edition) - pretty solid intro book - Gary Christian (6th Edition) - good - Douglas Skoog (6th Edition) - good Physical Chemistry + Quantum: - Atkins (8th Edition) - generally ok reference - Levine (6th Edition) - good - Lowe (3rd Edition) - I found it to be helpful but I found it hard to track down really good quantum books Inorganic Chemistry: - Miesslerr (3rd Edition) - I found it to be ok but with the same limitations as the quantum books Of course these are just the materials I used, check google and other resources. Good luck with your studying.

Umbrella programs (in this case) are programs where researchers/PIs from all the various branches of the biomedical sciences (and related areas) to a centralized place to foster interdisciplinary research. It usually is not an actual physical place but allows students who do not know which area they'd like to specialize in the opportunity to interact with various PI's and their projects (usually via lab rotations).

If you are on some sort of fellowship from the institute, you usually are not allowed to take on any other forms of employment as per agreement of the dotted line you signed when you accepted the fellowship. Now if you don't have a fellowship disregard my previous statement.

Echoing the others I went to a pretty small school (well known in certain circles but not every large circle) and got into most of the schools I applied. Have a strong SOP and you should be fine. You should start to zero in on your research interests for grad school since depending on what specialization you look into neuro and biochem are quite different.

I'm not absolutely up to date with the chem department situation in the institute but my initial assessment would be that if you have a few professors who you could research under and full funding I don't see an issue in accepting. My next question would be how long do you have to make your final decision? Also what other universities are you waiting on? I wouldn't make any final decisions until you have all the necessary information needed to make an informed decision. Good luck.

From the info you've provided I think you'll make a competitive applicant that can uniquely contribute to any graduate program. Many programs actually seek non-traditional students such as yourself that are high achieving and can provide a different perspective to the research being done at the institute. You are not too old or anything like that - if you want to continue your educational pursuits you'll be fine.

lab animal

I have only 5 people in my MS cohort. I like it since I get to know the other members of the cohort and I feel we can dive into lectures at a more personal level. My upcoming PhD cohort seems to be only slightly larger at about 10 students.

If you're aiming for MS or PhD degrees in the US, you'll want to score higher, especially on the Quant and AW portions. I say this since competition for international applicants is quite fierce. However, as med latte mentioned you have plenty of time to improve your score before the next application cycle begins.

I'm really liking Humans on Channel 4 (Britain) and AMC (US). It explores an alternative modern take on how society would interact with highly developed androids and AI.

Bought a case for my new smartphone, put it on, tripped and it fell face first. Saved myself ~$100 not having to replace the screen with a tiny $20 investment.

Agreed

I personally feel that the educational system (especially the public) should start to integrate language learning as early as the first grade. If the goal of language requirements is to have a better command of another language as well as develop some critical thinking skills, then waiting until high school makes achieving that goal difficult for many students. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of high school students that can "learn" a language, but the majority go through the motions to complete their credit requirements. I attended public school for the most part since I moved to the US (I grew up in Israel so I knew Hebrew and a bit of English) right before high school and was one of those kids who found learning a new language a fun and interesting challenge. So I taught myself Japanese and French and even though I don't really use the languages in my everyday life, the process was quite helpful in teaching me how to use various resources out there to learn a new skill.

Very good point - I forgot about the insanely difficult time many international applicants already have getting their training in the US (or whatever country, though I am unfamiliar with how international applicants are treated in other countries).

Coming from the STEM side of things, I don't believe that academic jobs are the only path that students (or young scholars) should be pursuing. In fact, I've never really considered a TT job, the end goal - mostly due to seeing the struggles that my father had to endure when I was growing up (he was in academia but eventually left for industry). I've even read that due to the academic market landscape, a majority of young PhD holders are seeking alternative paths (for example tech, industry, law, policy, etc.) - making the TT path the new "alternative" career line. The suggestion of letting in less students is interesting to me: how would these programs limit the entrance of students? At this point a lot of the top programs in just about every field have a staggering amount of not just good but excellent applicants that are extremely hard to distinguish from one another. What if the next Einstein, scored a bit too low on his GRE? Or didn't articulate himself well enough in his SOP? Or wasn't able to secure a summer research position? I do not envy the profs sitting on Adcomms. I understand the logic of the proposal, but in order to push the bounds of human knowledge (which is what doctoral programs strive to achieve), programs need a good deal of creative thinkers/researchers. Since past research experience is not absolutely indicative of future success, programs have to play the numbers game and let in a decent amount of applicants in order to keep the program running (help PI's with their projects, TA undergrads, etc) and hope (for lack of better phrasing) that the applicants are able to discover some interesting or paradigm shifting phenomena to keep the program well funded and achieve the goal of the doctoral degree. I feel that with less students, these necessary expansions in human knowledge would come about slower or go undiscovered but hey that's just one opinion. I have to disagree with the argument that a PhD is not job training. What is gained from almost every level of the post secondary educational experience, can serve as job training - if not directly, then through the transferable skills and life experience garnered by going through the process. While it would be nice to just spend a few years immersed in the experience, it would be naive to take on such an endeavor as a PhD just to "adopt a new way of thinking" for the sake of it. PhD students/candidates/holders are all humans and unfortunately time is not an endless commodity we're given - so if we have the opportunity to fine tune our scholastic and academic abilities, those new found skills should be put to use better the human experience to some degree through the career line we eventually choose (which is a very subjective notion, but hey). Overall, I think that academic jobs are not the be all and end all of the PhD degree. In some fields it may be a lot more difficult, but I believe that PhDs may serve a better role in "alternative" career paths. Therefore I do not believe that PhD programs should let in - the admission process is quite cutthroat as it is. I'd be quite interested in hearing how others feel on this topic.

There's many specializations within the field so you will have to be a bit more specific.

Are you applying to schools in the US? If so your test scores are a bit low for a lot of programs. This doesn't mean you can't get in anywhere, but it will make it that much harder. To give better advice, you have to specify what your research area(s) of interest are for graduate school. Also many private schools in the US tend to be more welcoming of international students.

Unless you're planning on going into power systems, the FE exam is not absolutely necessary for all engineering majors. Civil engineers are almost always required to take the FE, become EITs and then eventually PE's in their respective states. Now if you're planning on eventually becoming a PE, then there's not much you can do but wait til next year and take the exam. It's not too bad. This is the best advice I can give since you didn't elaborate on your future career and/or grad school goals.

I'd say it did for the most part. A lot of the programs were very interested with someone with a strong quantitative background + chemistry to augment the biology side of things. One program even said something to the effect of "you can teach a grad student high level bio, but it's very hard (and time consuming) to teach high level math & chemical interactions to someone without the sufficient background". Only one program felt that my background was not sufficient enough (thus my 1 rejection) even though I'd taken plenty of bio & biochem courses. Overall, even though I won't be using every skill I gained from engineering, I know that I'll be able to handle the transition well since I'm used to thinking on my feet and I'm used to balancing a ridiculous course load while doing research. Work on your SOP, since that is where you'll really be able to tell the program why your unique background would positively impact their program. A lot of the programs I talked to really liked the fact that I had a clear and concise reason behind shifting my research focus. Also demonstrate that you understand the differences between pharmacology and medicinal/synthetic chemistry. PM me if you have any other questions. FYI my stats were as followed and I had no real issue getting into almost all my programs (so I think you should be fine): BS cGPA: 3.68/4.00, MS cGPA: 4.00, GRE: 165Q, 167V, 4.5AW

storm drain

Agreed - I did that for 2 of the programs that were 30-60 min from my location and it worked out fine.

You have a similar background to me and I believe your GPA should present no real issues