I’ve been out of sciences for three and a half years. I took the pre med courses, getting mostly low As and high Bs, with a couple of C+s. I’ve been told that to strengthen my academic record I should take upper level classes. When I take more sciences to strengthen my academic record, should I jump straighto the 400 level courses, or start out slow with the 200 level courses? My background includes: BCPM sciences, developmental biology, animal behavior, and microbiology. I can’t say I remember much, but don’t 400 level courses review a lot of that stuff anyway?
Hi there,
The course number is not that indicative of the level of difficulty of the course. If you are taking upper-level biology courses and the 400 level is not graduate level, the only pre-req is General Biology. You should be fine with the 400 level course.
If the 400 level courses are graduate level, you may have to do some extra research and write a graduate-level paper in order to get the 400-level credit. You should look into the course descriptions in the college catalog or check with the department that is offering the course.
If your coursework is in the Chemistry department, some upper division courses have pre-reqs like Analytical Chem or P.Chem, thus you would not want to take these courses unless you have taken the pre-req class.
At my undergraduate school, 400-level courses were graduate courses and required extra work from the undergraduates.
Good luck
Natalie 