Neuroscience Grad School Prospects

[ussrian]

I am currently a junior, have 1.5 years left at UW-Madison. I am thinking of applying to grad school for neuroscience, thinking of computational, systems, maybe cognitive. I am also interested in brain imaging. I am wondering about opinions on what my chances are of getting into programs, and if anyone was in a similar position as me, or has any advice.

My majors are psychology, neurobiology, and I am hoping to get a certificate(minor) in computer science. My GPA is 3.85, conservatively, it might go down when I take all the CS courses, but maybe not.

I've worked in 3 labs in the last 2 years, only one of them neurobiology. My current lab has nothing to do with neuroscience, but I do work with modeling software (no programming), and if I'm smart enough, maybe will get a paper or two published before graduation.

My math background is quite minimal though. I've taken first calc, stats, calc based physics, and will take discrete math, second calc, and 5 more comp-sci courses before graduation, which is still pretty minimal for computational programs it seems.

So what are my opinions? Should I take an extra year to take more math/comp sci courses? Do I have any chances of getting into programs with only what I described? Should I find a neuro lab instead, take a year off? I'm especially interested in computational neuro, since I have a feeling that it could help transitioning into industry if the whole PhD thing doesn't work out. Anyone know if that is a correct assumption?

Thank You for any feedback!

[Bison_PhD]

Your info makes it seem like you would fit well in a computational neuro program. That said, systems and cognitive neuro is somewhat of a different story. Your stats look good (some better than mine) but it really is a matter of fit. I would suggest applying to grad programs that have you have a strong interest (do your research on this to not waste your money and time). Also, look a research work as a fall back. if you get in great, but if you don't you will have another option that will help your app for next time.

[really]

Ditto to most of what Bison said.

However, if you want to do computational neuro, depending on the type of computational neuro you want to do (neural network modeling, dynamical systems, neuronal models, programming-heavy analysis/statistics, neuroengineering, etc. - it's so vast and varied), you may want to consider taking more higher level math courses, such as linear algebra and differential equations. Upper level computer science courses aren't too useful for neuroscience research, but you should be at least comfortable with programming, ideally in matlab. I think it is pretty program-specific what kind of computational background these programs are looking for, but you may be able to get a sense of it by looking at the professors' research.

When I applied last year to computational programs, I was asked a few times what my math background was (I have a strong computer science background so no need to ask about that), and I think having taken a course in differential equations in particular was a plus. Not crucial, but good to have since a decent amount of modeling involves it to some degree.

Edited December 31, 2011 by really