Forum:Bioinformatics course good for microbiology student or not?

Question

[cheeesu]

Hello all,

I am new to this forum it would be highly appreciable if you could help me solve my problem. I am a medical microbiologist(2008) with no practical experience in molecular biology and genetics. Also I don't have much knowledge about computer programming. Since I am from a under developed country I am not skilled in advance laboratory equipment. But bioinformatics seems an interesting subject and I have a keen desire to study it. So I want to know that, Is my decision right? Am I going on right path?

I searched many universities from US, CANADA AND EUROPE, they all have high admission requirement. Being an average student I choose average universities and send them mail but none of them replied me with satisfactory answer. They all told me go through and admission requirement and procedure. Some of them even told me to find a supervisor from their faculty member. I even went through the faculty list and got more confused. in my country our research work is done from 10 years old published papers and to my surprise all the faculty members research work that I went through was above my level of skill. So I am stuck whether to apply or not. Please if anyone faced similar problem could suggest me what should I do?

Answer 1

[DG]

This can be a difficult problem, and there are many different possible approaches that you can take I think. At least here in Canada, how different schools and departments handle graduate students varies widely. For many if you can find a supervisor who will take you on, and your grades meet the minimum departmental requirements, you'll be accepted into the program. Undergraduate education being quite out of date isn't that unusual but it can be a challenge. It can also be difficult for potential supervisors to evaluate your grades and assess your prospects from that.

If you want to start teaching yourself some programming or bioinformatics you could always do some courses on Coursera, Code Academy, or a similar online platform. If you can do one or more of those courses with the paid evaluations that could help you out a lot in terms of potential supervisors having coursework that they can more easily evaluate your skills on. And it gets you a head start on learning programming and bioinformatics.

Other options would be to take non-graduate level coursework of some kind in the US, Canada, or Europe, again to build a bit of a portfolio of coursework that is more up to date and easier for potential supervisors to evaluate. That is potentially a longer time frame though.

[cheeesu]

Yeap. I went through number of university website and I meet the minimun requirement except for IELTS (as I have General test score but they need Academic test score). I know bioinformatics is a tough subject but I know I can do it but the thing is, unless I get admission how am I going to prove myself. Similarly preparing pre-hand is the best option as you suggested but again the question is will I get admission?. Moreover I don't have 24/7 internet access and I am financially weak so i dont think I have any options besides asking suggestions all around discussion forum so that I get a clear view about how the admission procedure works and, how and which type of students get selected.

[DG]

Having sat on some review committees in the past where it has been discussed, for most Faculty in the US, Canada, and probably Europe as well, if students are coming from very different Academic systems, particularly South-East Asia and China, unless the student is coming from a school that is quite well recognized (outside of the region) and the student's grades are obviously good, it is very difficult to assess a candidate on paper. There are some services for translating grades from one system to another, but I don't think they are all universally trusted since the applicant pays them to do the conversions.

So it may be extremely difficult without doing some sort of recognized coursework that they can evaluate. Also, as TriS mentioned, if your correspondence to them is relatively generic, it is going to be turned down. We get a lot of messages from prospective student's, particularly from outside of North America/Europe that we have very little way of assessing their skill level.

Answer 2

[TriS]

the internet is a huge repository of accessible education, from Youtube to Coursera to the MIT Opencourseware (and more). all of these information are available for free, independently from where you are physically located. it allows you to get your feet wet and get an idea about what you are getting yourself into.

if you have a background in medical microbiology you might find interesting looking into microbiome studies/reviews and/or talks (from Pubmed/Youtube/Google), a number of papers and reviews are freely available and give you a good insight into the applications of bioinformatics in microbiology for either environmental sciences or human/animal conditions. if you can get comfortable in discussing a couple of key points that you are interested in, then you are up to a good start. and btw, finding a supervisor is a good thing because he/she can be the person that allows you to get into that course by talking to the admission committee!

ok so, why would you want to do that...as Dan mentioned, if you contact a faculty member for a position, they will be VERY happy to see that you did already your homework and have a basic understanding of what you want to do. what would make them even happier is you looking up what they do and discuss it with them. the don't want to hear "I called you cause I want to study bioinformatics", they prefer "I called you because you do/your school offers X and Y, I'm interested in X and Y because of those reasons: etc etc...".

School-wise, there is a wide range of opportunities based on your VISA requirements and financial needs. Google can be your best friend in this case. You might want to look into scholarships or opportunities for students from developing countries.

as first step tho, I would strongly suggest to do some reading, follow online lectures etc to get some good insights to use as stronghold for your applications!

[cheeesu]

Thank you for your reply. I definitely have done some web searching whenever possible. I don't have access to internet 24/7 but as your suggestion I have downloaded coursera but for me, its of no use as it is an online courses. However I have downloaded some pdf and have been reading it. Regarding faculty member, I have sent mail to almost 50 of them from different university but only few replied and that too with negative response (may be because I wrote the letter in format that you strictly prohibited to). Nevertheless I haven't lost my hope and enthusiasm, I will keep on trying till I succeed.