Advice for an NYU Junior Changing Majors to Neuroscience

[fk378]

Hi all,
I'm hoping that I can get some advice on my current situation. I'm a junior at NYU, and I've just recently switched my major to Neuroscience. After undergrad, I want to get a PhD in neural science and my long term goal (as of right now) is to do research in neural coding and neural pathways. I'm hoping to get a math minor, but I'm thinking about heading towards a math major instead since I enjoy math and I think that developing the type of abstract thinking that is involved in mathematics would be a good complement to a science career.

On the other hand, I'm afraid that if I do not pursue a neural science major as an undergrad, then I won't be able to get into a good PhD program that would have required me to have certain science courses under my belt.

If anyone has any input to give I would really appreciate it! It's kind of stressing me out because I feel pressure to decide soon so that I can graduate on time or a semester later if need be.

 

[Cincinnatus]

First of all, NYU is a very good place for neuroscience right now, especially for more mathematically oriented neuroscience. Either a math major or the neural science major there should prepare you for a PhD program in theoretical/computational neuroscience. If you look at the websites of computational neuroscience doctoral programs, many of them say something like "no experience in neuroscience necessary", they are looking for people with a quantitative background.

If you are more interested in a *less mathematical* subfield of neuroscience then you should probably go for the neural science major.