I just had a couple of questions about Biostats and I couldn't find the answer to them, so I was hoping someone here would be able to help me out. I just recently graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Biology. I originally planned to go on to graduate school and become a Physician Assistant. But after working in an ER, I realized that I didn't really like the patient contact side of healthcare. I still knew that I wanted to do something in healthcare, just not with direct patient contact. My friend's mom is a biostatistician and told me that a biostatistician fits both those categories.
So after doing some research online, I have a couple of questions:
1. I read that most MS biostats programs have 2 years of calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations as prerequisites. Seeing as the only math that I took as an undergrad was Calculus 1, I still have many prerequisites to take. My question is, if I took the remaining prerequisites at a community college (in order to save money), would that be looked down upon by admission committees because I didn't take the prerequisite courses at a 4 year institution?
2. I also saw that a lot of applicants have some sort of research. I didn't do any research as an undergrad and was wondering would it really hurt my application if I ended up taking all the prerequisites and applied for an MS in biostats without any research?
Thanks in advance for all the help!