numbersloth

I'm a current junior in college. I'm very interested in infectious disease epidemiology at both the MPH and PhD level. I have some questions about undergrad preparation and the infectious diseases in general: (1) I'm currently an Anthropology Major and Biology and Mathematics Minor. Should I switch biology to my major? I'm particularly interested in disease dynamics and modeling. I'm actually also interested in the kind of work that would be done on the more computational side of a ecology and evolutionary biology lab working on pathogens and disease dynamics, if that gives any indication. But I'm also interested in the social side, especially mapping and modeling slum health and infectious diseases in developing urban countries. (2) If I want to do extensive fieldwork in other countries (see above for slum health interests), is academia the only way to do this? Do I need a clinical degree as well (MD?) in order to do extensive field work?

I'm a Biology Major with a Statistics minor hoping to apply to biostatistics MS programs in the near future. I have solid CS and Biology grades (mostly A- and B+s). However, I received a B- in Linear Algebra since I mistakenly took the theoretical version. Should I retake an applied version of Linear Algebra at another school to receive a higher grade? I'm definitely more interested in applied biostatistics as programming and data science are where my strengths and interests lie (vs. theoretical statistics).