From Medicine to Computational Neuroscience
Hey y'all,
I'm a med student (in Iraq), just finished my second year. I’m not really into the clinical side of medicine, especially the disease focused part. What really interests me is biology as a system, how living systems are built from basic physical components, how they interact with their environment, and how something like intelligence can emerge from "dumb" atoms following some rules. So because of that I decided to aim toward computational neuroscience.
I started seriously around 7 months ago with Gilbert Strang’s linear algebra textbook. I've finished 5 and a half chapters (now I'm at eigenvalues/vectors). Also finished about a chapter and a half from Boyce & DiPrima’s differential equations book.
During this time I’ve also been filling gaps in calculus beyond what I learned in school. So my next plan for the next 2-3 years is roughly like this:
Finish core linear algebra, especially eigenvalues/eigenvectors, diagonalization, symmetric matrices, positive definite matrices, and eventually SVD/PCA.
Move deeper into ODEs and dynamical systems: phase spaces, equilibria, stability, numerical solving.
Study vector calculus and fields: gradient, divergence, curl, flux, diffusion intuition.
Then numerical methods, probability/statistics, stochastic processes, PDEs, and finally neural modeling more directly.
I’m posting here because I want feedback from people who are already in or near this field.
What do u think?
Does this path make sense?
Am I overemphasizing any topic too early?
and when should I start reading actual compneuro papers or books, even if I don’t understand everything yet?
Also, what would be a realistic first project for someone at my current level?
my final goal is to become strong enough to apply for a funded master's program in compneuro somewhere with a serious research environment (definitely not Iraq)
n thanks. I’d really appreciate serious criticism.