No longer your local space girl
Should I be studying for my thermodynamics final exam right now? Yes. Am I procrastinating? Also yes. Mom please don't kill me. (Edit: I ended up spending so long on writing this that my exam is now over. It was not good, as most things related to thermodynamics tend to be).
Anyways so after lots of thinking and some Zoom meetings with various professors at UBC I've made the decision to transfer from honours physics and astronomy to honours biophysics! I've confirmed my course plan with an advisor and a lot of the courses I've already taken (all except my two astronomy courses) overlap with the biophysics degree plan, so I just have four courses I'm taking in third year rather than second and then I'll be fine to still be done within four years. For the odd UBC student or curious people, I'll list my courses for the entirety of my undergrad education (subject to minor changes) at the end of this post.
Some thoughts on this transfer and why I decided to do it. I like astronomy, don't get me wrong. I love how mind boggling the size of things like galaxies and planetary nebulae are, I enjoy learning about things that seem like dark magic such as black holes. Because of how otherworldly topics within astronomy are, it's almost as if you get to spend your time learning about some made up fantasy world, and who wouldn't love that? Not to mention how stunning literally everything in space is. You think your best friend is attractive? Look at the veil nebula1 and then you'll know what beauty really is. A fun way of getting to have a daily dose of astro-beauty is this cool (free!) email subscription that NASA offers called APOD (astronomy picture of the day)2.
But alas, after spending two years in my undergrad program I began to find out what astrophysicists actually do on a daily basis. A lot of it, especially if you go into academia, is data analysis, modelling, and coding to do that modelling and fitting. This may be fun for some people, but data analysis is kind of boring to me, even if it's for pretty galaxies, so I ended up trying to find other options. Another major factor for me was that I have a drive to do something meaningful with my career, it doesn't have to be as major as curing cancer, but I do want to do something that I can see does some good in the world. Advancing scientific knowledge is definitely meaningful, but wasn't quite tangible enough of an impact on its own to make me happy. After some digging through UBC's program offerings I ended up finding biophysics, spoke to some biophysicists at the university, and decided it would be a better fit for me.
Biophysics opens up some more doors. Having just an undergraduate degree in biophysics is a bit more employable than astrophysics, but also still keeps the option of grad school open since it's an honours program. I could go the academia route, I could get a professional masters degree in medical physics and go work at a hospital, I could go into biotech, I could be a lab technician, and so on. I could even go to medical school if I really wanted to (although I'm not sure I want to spend that many more years before having a well established career) or I could help out on astrophysics or solid state matter projects since I'll still have a very strong physics background.
Looking more at the very near future of my courses, for those who are interested, my full course plan for the entirety of my undergraduate degree is listed below. Some comments on it: the BIOL and CHEM courses I'm taking in the winter session of 21/22 are technically second year, but I have to play catch-up. Some courses span two terms, so I split them into two. I really hope I end up enjoying this path more than the one I originally planned :).
| Year and Session | Course Code | Description | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter T1 2019 | SCIE001 | Broad first year program3 | 13 |
| Winter T1 2019 | BIOL140 | Laboratory investigations in science | 2 |
| Winter T1 2019 | ENGL112 | Strategies for university writing | 3 |
| Winter T2 2020 | SCIE001 | Broad first year program3 | 14 |
| Summer T1 2020 | MATH221 | Matrix algebra | 3 |
| Summer T1-2 2020 | GRSJ101 | Introduction to social justice | 3 |
| Summer T2 2020 | ENGL110 | Approaches to literature | 3 |
| Winter T1 2020 | ASTR200 | Frontiers of astrophysics | 3 |
| Winter T1 2020 | MATH217 | Multivariable and vector calculus | 4 |
| Winter T1 2020 | PHYS200 | Relativity and quanta | 4 |
| Winter T1 2020 | PHYS210 | Introduction to computational physics | 3 |
| Winter T1 2020 | PHYS219 | Intermediate experimental physics I | 2 |
| Winter T2 2021 | ASTR205 | Star and stellar populations | 3 |
| Winter T2 2021 | MATH215 | Elementary differential equations I | 3 |
| Winter T2 2021 | PHYS203 | Thermal physics I | 3 |
| Winter T2 2021 | PHYS216 | Intermediate mechanics | 4 |
| Winter T2 2021 | PHYS229 | Intermediate experimental physics II | 1 |
| Summer T1 2021 | MATH316 | Elementary differential equations II | 3 |
| Summer T1 2021 | CHEM233 | Organic chemistry for biological sciences | 3 |
| Summer T2 2021 | MATH300 | Introduction to complex variables | 3 |
| Winter T1 2021 | BIOL200 | Fundamentals of cell biology | 3 |
| Winter T1 2021 | PHYS301 | Electricity and magnetism | 3 |
| Winter T1 2021 | PHYS304 | Introduction to quantum mechanics | 3 |
| Winter T1 2021 | CHEM235 | Organic chemistry laboratory | 1 |
| Winter T1 2021 | PHYS309 | Electrical laboratory | 3 |
| Winter T2 2022 | BIOL201 | Introduction to biochemistry | 3 |
| Winter T2 2022 | MATH318 | Probability with physical applications | 3 |
| Winter T2 2022 | PHYS305 | Introduction to biophysics | 3 |
| Winter T2 2022 | MICB202 | Introductory medical microbiology and immunology | 3 |
| Winter T2 2022 | CENS303B | Representations of the Holocaust (in English) | 3 |
| Summer T1 2022 | BIOL300 | Fundamentals of biomathematics | 3 |
| Summer T2 2022 | ARCL228 | Forensic anthropology | 3 |
| Winter T1 2022 | PHYS449 | Honours thesis | 3 |
| Winter T1 2022 | MATH361 | Introduction to mathematical biology | 3 |
| Winter T1 2022 | PHYS404 | Introduction to medical physics | 3 |
| Winter T1 2022 | PCTH325 | Rational basis of drug therapy | 3 |
| Winter T1 2022 | PHYS405 | Radiation biophysics | 3 |
| Winter T2 2023 | PHYS449 | Honours thesis | 3 |
| Winter T2 2023 | BIOL342 | Integrative biology laboratory | 2 |
| Winter T2 2023 | BIOC302 | General biochemistry | 3 |
| Winter T2 2023 | PHYS438 | Zoological physics | 3 |
| Winter T2 2023 | CENS307 | Witches: myth and reality | 3 |
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebula↩
2 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html↩
3 https://scienceone.ubc.ca/↩
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