Plan of study
April 27, 2016
Plan of Study
- Introduction about my discipline and graduate program:
My major is called Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, which is the combination of biological analysis and high-performance computing. In this course we should learn to collect, store, analyze and present complex biological data. Through this work, critical contributions are made to disease detection, drug design, forensics, agriculture and environmental sciences.
The graduate degree program requires 31 credits. The program is divided into 5 parts:
- Bioinformatics core courses (12 credits),
- Advanced bioinformatics (3 credits),
- Electives (12 or 9 credits),
- Bioinformatics seminar (1 credit)
- Research component (3 or 6 credits)
Research Project Credits: 3 or Master’s Thesis Credits: 6
There are some seminar presentations in a variety of areas of bioinformatics and computational biology by COS faculty, staff, advanced PhD students, and professional visitors. Through these opportunities, I can cultivate other aspects of my professional interests.
2. My academic goals:
- Achieve the requirement of pathway program and step into graduate degree program successfully.
- Because my major of bachelor degree is biotechnology, so I have weakness on computer programming, I’ll make up the shortage before the beginning of the courses.
- Determine my specific research and adviser.
- Apply for an internship.
3. Plan of Study:
I want to register for Research Project instead of Master’s Thesis because through this I only need 9 credits for electives. Thus it will be easier for me to finish my graduate degree within two years. My temporary study plan is listed as follow.
Fall 2015
| Course Title and Number | Number of Credits | Semester |
| PROV 501 P01 Intro Grad Study Int’l Stds I | 2 | Fall 2015 |
| EAP 506 P01 Grad Comm in Disciplines I | 4 | Fall 2015 |
| EAP 503 P02 Interpersonal Comm Int’l Grad | 2 | Fall 2015 |
| EAP 097 P01 GRE Prep | 0 | Fall 2015 |
| BINF 631 P01 Molecular Cell Biology | 3 | Fall 2015 |
Total credits: 3
Spring 2016
| Course Title and Number | Number of Credits | Semester |
| BINF 630 Bioinformatics Methods | 3 | Spring2016 |
| BINF 633 Molecular Biotechnology | 3 | Spring2016 |
| PROV 502 Introduction to Graduate Study II | 2 | Spring2016 |
| EAP 507 Graduate Communication in Disciplines II | 4 | Spring2016 |
| EAP 510 linguistics Capstone | 0 | Spring2016 |
| EAP 097 GRE Preparation | 0 | Spring2016 |
Total credit: 6
There is no Summer Course about Bioinformatics and computational Biology.
Fall 2016
| Course Title and Number | Number of Credits | Semester |
| BINF 701 Systems Biology | 3 | Fall 2016 |
| BINF 730 Biological Sequence and Genome Analysis | 3 | Fall 2016 |
| BINF 634 Bioinformatics Programming | 3 | Fall 2016 |
Total credit: 9
Spring 2017
| Course Title and Number | Number of Credits | Semester |
| BINF 690 Numerical Method for Bioinform | 3 | Spring 2017 |
| BINF 731 Protein Structure Analysis | 3 | Spring 2017 |
| BINF 704 – Colloquium in Bioinformatics | 1 | Spring 2017 |
Total credit: 7
Fall 2017
| Course Title and Number | Number of Credits | Semester |
| BINF 799 – Master’s Thesis | 6 | Spring 2017 |
Total credit: 6
No courses are prerequisites for other courses.
- Academic Adviser:
I have two potential advisers for my program.
- Lance Liotta, Professor. Cancer research to include the process of tumor invasion and metastasis at the molecular level; technologies used to make broad discoveries in genomics, functional genomics and tissue proteomics.
- Don Seto, Professor. Viral genomics and bioinformatics. Adenoviruses are used as a model system to apply genomics and bioinformatics approaches for understanding viruses, particularly pathogens, and for changing paradigms.
There are many times I will need the help from my adviser, such as when I have problem about choosing electives which are more suitable for me, or meet some difficulties in my major classes, or want some information about internship.
I’ll meet my adviser at least three times per semester. Firstly, at the beginning of the semester, I’ll meet him in order to set up a list of goal or tasks I plan to finish. At the mid of the semester, through talking with my adviser, I’ll get some feedback for my work and take some adjustment. In addition, I’ll meet my adviser at the end of the semester to get advice about choosing the suitable classes especially electives. What’s more, I’ll know how I should prepare myself for the next semester.