Pre-req for my pre-reqs?
March 31, 2012 5:13 PM Subscribe
I need to take Human Anatomy and Physiology as pre-req's for Occupational Therapy school. Those courses require that you have taken Bio 101 with a Lab, which I did not take in college (graduated in 2006). My questions are: how lost will I be if I do not take Bio 101 first (college classes sure are expensive!), and is this something that the community college where I want to take Anatomy will even check?
Would I be able to get up to speed well enough by studying a Bio textbook on my own, or using it to look up stuff when I have questions? I mean, if I had taken General Bio in college I would have forgotten everything by now anyway. I do want to knock Anatomy/Physiology out of the park because they are the most important pre-req's for this program, and if you all advise that this wouldn't really be possible without taking Bio first, then I will sign up. Potentially relevant: I get good grades in all subjects when I try and care (and I will try and care!)
If you think this can be managed without taking Bio, I am curious if this is something community colleges are in the habit of checking. I'm also curious if the program I am applying for will notice the absence of Bio in spite of the fact that it is not listed as a pre-req (I realize that this might be something I just need to ask them).
Would I be able to get up to speed well enough by studying a Bio textbook on my own, or using it to look up stuff when I have questions? I mean, if I had taken General Bio in college I would have forgotten everything by now anyway. I do want to knock Anatomy/Physiology out of the park because they are the most important pre-req's for this program, and if you all advise that this wouldn't really be possible without taking Bio first, then I will sign up. Potentially relevant: I get good grades in all subjects when I try and care (and I will try and care!)
If you think this can be managed without taking Bio, I am curious if this is something community colleges are in the habit of checking. I'm also curious if the program I am applying for will notice the absence of Bio in spite of the fact that it is not listed as a pre-req (I realize that this might be something I just need to ask them).
I don't know about anatomy, but my partner just took Physiology last semester. Of course it's going to depend on the course, but in general introductory Physiology is just that - very introductory. He thinks that Chem 101 was more helpful for him.
It's definitely possible that the program will ask you to make up any specific pre-reqs required for courses, even if they're not specifically listed as pre-reqs for the program. It also seems very likely that you can successfully get that pre-req waived.
posted by muddgirl at 5:21 PM on March 31, 2012
It's definitely possible that the program will ask you to make up any specific pre-reqs required for courses, even if they're not specifically listed as pre-reqs for the program. It also seems very likely that you can successfully get that pre-req waived.
posted by muddgirl at 5:21 PM on March 31, 2012
If you get permission from the instructor, pre-reqs don't mean anything. Shoot the professor an email to the effect of "I see bio is a pre-req, I don't have it, but I know I can do well in this class, can I have permission to enroll without the pre-req?" and it's likely they won't care.
posted by imagineerit at 5:27 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by imagineerit at 5:27 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
What I just said won't work if bio is a *degree* requirement of course.
posted by imagineerit at 5:28 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by imagineerit at 5:28 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
Not sure this would work, but throwing it out as a suggestion for consideration and for others to up or down-vote:
Is there any way you could take an Advanced Placement exam in bio, or something similar, to fulfill the requirements?
posted by alphanerd at 5:46 PM on March 31, 2012
Is there any way you could take an Advanced Placement exam in bio, or something similar, to fulfill the requirements?
posted by alphanerd at 5:46 PM on March 31, 2012
I took A&P as a prerequisite for my paramedic program at a community college, which sounds similar to what you need for occupational therapy.
BIOL 101 was a requirement for my program and a prerequisite for A&P. It was useful to me in my career and it interested me enough to pursue a biology BA now that I'm back in school. However, it did very little for me in terms of A&P. A&P at many schools, community colleges especially, is regrettably very memorization-based. The only place where it gave me a leg up was in the section about the physiology of the cell, which was very basic and surface-level compared to what I studied in BIOL 101.
It doesn't sound like BIOL 101 is a requirement for your degree, so what imagineerit said is very viable: Talk to the professor. If you took biology in high school and did well, that may be a minor leg up. If you have a record of good grades in the sciences at the college level, that may be a major leg up.
If the professor really wants you to take the prerequisite, do they take CLEP exams? Do they have a placement exam for biology? If so, either of those could be a way to document that you learned things from studying that bio text in your spare time.
posted by skyl1n3 at 6:09 PM on March 31, 2012
BIOL 101 was a requirement for my program and a prerequisite for A&P. It was useful to me in my career and it interested me enough to pursue a biology BA now that I'm back in school. However, it did very little for me in terms of A&P. A&P at many schools, community colleges especially, is regrettably very memorization-based. The only place where it gave me a leg up was in the section about the physiology of the cell, which was very basic and surface-level compared to what I studied in BIOL 101.
It doesn't sound like BIOL 101 is a requirement for your degree, so what imagineerit said is very viable: Talk to the professor. If you took biology in high school and did well, that may be a minor leg up. If you have a record of good grades in the sciences at the college level, that may be a major leg up.
If the professor really wants you to take the prerequisite, do they take CLEP exams? Do they have a placement exam for biology? If so, either of those could be a way to document that you learned things from studying that bio text in your spare time.
posted by skyl1n3 at 6:09 PM on March 31, 2012
I took A&P at community college last fall. I'd actually had a lot of college-level biology before hand, but I don't think I would have needed it. If you're generally a smart person and you were exposed to some ideas from biology and chemistry in grade school, you should be able to handle it. Most of the review stuff will probably be covered in the class and in the first few chapters of your A&P textbook.
Topics you might want to brush up on:
Cells. What they are, what their major parts and organelles are. How the cell membrane works. How stuff is transported in and out of the cell: diffusion, osmosis, active transport processes. Steps of cell division. Major steps of cellular respiration.
DNA and RNA. In very basic terms, how do they encode information? What are replication, transcription, and translation? Dominant and recessive genes.
What atoms, elements, and molecules are. The different types of bonds. Acids, bases, salts, and pH. Distinguish classes of organic molecules: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic acids.
posted by bookish at 6:12 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
Topics you might want to brush up on:
Cells. What they are, what their major parts and organelles are. How the cell membrane works. How stuff is transported in and out of the cell: diffusion, osmosis, active transport processes. Steps of cell division. Major steps of cellular respiration.
DNA and RNA. In very basic terms, how do they encode information? What are replication, transcription, and translation? Dominant and recessive genes.
What atoms, elements, and molecules are. The different types of bonds. Acids, bases, salts, and pH. Distinguish classes of organic molecules: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, nucleic acids.
posted by bookish at 6:12 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
Also, as far as whether or not your college will let you take it without the prereq: this really depends on how they do things. My college didn't ask for transcripts when I told them I had already taken several biology classes, they just took me at my word. Some schools also grant teachers a lot of leeway as far as who they want to let in the class. But other schools are sticklers for rules, so YMMV.
posted by bookish at 6:15 PM on March 31, 2012
posted by bookish at 6:15 PM on March 31, 2012
a lot of schools also use intro bio as a filter- they don't want to waste the space of an A&P class without knowing that the student can at least hack an into bio class. Community Colleges are, as a rule, slammed with folks going back to school to take pre-reqs for health classes. They are most likely going to care.
As for your programs, it would probably depend. Med school, for example, doesn't care- if you have your two (or four? its been a while) semesters of bio, that's cool, they don't care about the specific classes. Occupational therapy is probably much more specific.
Finally, if you ARE studying on your own, I would go for Campbell, 7th edition I have taught or taken classes with the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th editions, and dealt with a number of other intro bio books. Campbell is a solid book- the best of the ones I have dealt with-, but there is very little new content in the newest two editions, especially that you, a future occupational therapist, need to worry about. The new stuff is mostly genomic and proteomic stuff- important to future molecular biologists- not so much for occupational therapists.
posted by rockindata at 7:48 PM on March 31, 2012
As for your programs, it would probably depend. Med school, for example, doesn't care- if you have your two (or four? its been a while) semesters of bio, that's cool, they don't care about the specific classes. Occupational therapy is probably much more specific.
Finally, if you ARE studying on your own, I would go for Campbell, 7th edition I have taught or taken classes with the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th editions, and dealt with a number of other intro bio books. Campbell is a solid book- the best of the ones I have dealt with-, but there is very little new content in the newest two editions, especially that you, a future occupational therapist, need to worry about. The new stuff is mostly genomic and proteomic stuff- important to future molecular biologists- not so much for occupational therapists.
posted by rockindata at 7:48 PM on March 31, 2012
Most professors are (in my experience) pretty skeptical toward people who claim they're going to be fine without the prereqs, unless they already have a personal relationship with you. If you already know the professors, though, it's worth asking.
If they're listing only a few higher level classes as prereqs then they probably do want you to have bio (even if you don't use it), they're just being lazy and not listing it out because they know it's a prereq for one of the prereqs. On the other hand, if you have a long, detailed list of prereqs which specifies every other class, then the bio is unimportant.
I think the easiest way to do this would be if your college has the CLEP bio exam as a test-out option for 101.
posted by anaelith at 4:49 AM on April 1, 2012
If they're listing only a few higher level classes as prereqs then they probably do want you to have bio (even if you don't use it), they're just being lazy and not listing it out because they know it's a prereq for one of the prereqs. On the other hand, if you have a long, detailed list of prereqs which specifies every other class, then the bio is unimportant.
I think the easiest way to do this would be if your college has the CLEP bio exam as a test-out option for 101.
posted by anaelith at 4:49 AM on April 1, 2012
I'm a professor at a community college. Not all professors have the ability to let you skip pre-req's, even if they wanted to. Your fastest approach should be seeing an adviser or the department chair in the department that offers the A&P course*. Explain the situation, emphasize how much you are willing to work on your own, and hope for the best.
*It might require some legwork on your part to find the person who can best help you. Look at the prefix for the A&P course. Say it's "BIO". On the school's web site, look at the list of programs offered for the most likely department (i.e., it probably won't be under Automotive or Computer Science, but it might be under Science or Nursing or Allied Health). If you see "BIO" on the list, call that department's main phone number and ask to make an appointment with the department chair about getting a prerequisite for a course waived. If the person on the phone discourages this, ask who their advisers are, and then call one of those people directly (keep calling and emailing. Find out their office hours and drop in if you have to.) Do not talk to the general registration advisers, speak to someone in the department. I can't emphasize this enough.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 7:01 AM on April 1, 2012
*It might require some legwork on your part to find the person who can best help you. Look at the prefix for the A&P course. Say it's "BIO". On the school's web site, look at the list of programs offered for the most likely department (i.e., it probably won't be under Automotive or Computer Science, but it might be under Science or Nursing or Allied Health). If you see "BIO" on the list, call that department's main phone number and ask to make an appointment with the department chair about getting a prerequisite for a course waived. If the person on the phone discourages this, ask who their advisers are, and then call one of those people directly (keep calling and emailing. Find out their office hours and drop in if you have to.) Do not talk to the general registration advisers, speak to someone in the department. I can't emphasize this enough.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 7:01 AM on April 1, 2012
Possible back-up plan if the above suggestions don't work, although it's considerably more expensive:
Take A&P online (if you don't need the lab requirement). Many for-profit online schools like University of Phoenix will let you register for nearly any class, pre-reqs be damned. They're expensive, but only last about 7 or 8 weeks each, so you could easily complete both A&P I and A&P II within the space of a single normal semester.
posted by pecanpies at 7:59 AM on April 1, 2012
Take A&P online (if you don't need the lab requirement). Many for-profit online schools like University of Phoenix will let you register for nearly any class, pre-reqs be damned. They're expensive, but only last about 7 or 8 weeks each, so you could easily complete both A&P I and A&P II within the space of a single normal semester.
posted by pecanpies at 7:59 AM on April 1, 2012
My daughter just got accepted to a masters program in occupational therapy (Hurrah!) She hadn't taken basic bio since her first semester of college in 2001 and remembers nothing. She took A&P at the local community college this year and hasn't had any problems with it. So I wouldn't worry about being lost at all. The community college, fwiw, didn't care whether she'd taken biology or not, although they did demand a transcript. So yes, it can be done without a biology background.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:32 PM on April 1, 2012
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:32 PM on April 1, 2012
I'm taking APHY right now at a Canadian community college and getting excellent marks, if I do say so myself. My last bio was in grade 12, 8 years ago, and it has not been a problem at all. Definitely go for it.
My college doesn't have any pre-requisites for APHY, so I don't have any advice about getting into the class.
posted by snorkmaiden at 10:19 AM on April 2, 2012
My college doesn't have any pre-requisites for APHY, so I don't have any advice about getting into the class.
posted by snorkmaiden at 10:19 AM on April 2, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
So I think what you propose is a non-starter.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 5:21 PM on March 31, 2012