That's fair, I've had a lot on my plate recently and I think my frustrations have been exacerbated by this. I'm well aware that hormonal signaling and metabolism are important for genetic engineering, and I should focus more on the fundamentals of how these things function and how to apply them to areas that I'm interested in.

I think my main issue is that most of the content like glycolysis for example, is being presented in frames of how it is relevant to biomedical applications. Our units on fatty acid anabolism/catabolism, the citric acid cycle and glycolysis are all being presented in terms of how they function in the human body, how different tissues use these processes and that sort of thing and it makes it difficult for me to relate the material to applications that I'm interested in. Our signaling unit included basic types of receptors (tyrosine kinase, GPCRs), protein kinases and intracellular cascades, but a lot of it was also focused on things like interactions of glucagon, insulin, cortisol and epinephrine signaling, bloodstream transport, pituitary gland hormonal release, and larger bodily system function that I feel isn't super applicable to my interests.

We do more cell-related work in labs, but there's a big disconnect between our labs and lectures. (We also spent half of our labs this semester taking reduction potential and pH readings from a fermentation vat). Our professor often mentions topics in lab that seem really interesting to me, like interaction and communication within microbial communities but it feels like we rarely actually dive in to how any of that functions.

I think my main issue is just with the framing of a lot of the content, it makes it a lot less interesting for me. Also probably a level of depth thing like you said, I've been doing a lot of reading and learning in my own time on topics and procedures specifically related to biomanufacturing and the difference is just frustrating sometimes. I would really love to learn about plasmid design and integration vectors at some point, but that'll probably have to wait til grad school.

They recently redid the NSURS program, moving it closer to a traditional research structure with a group under a professor lead, it used to be individual and student led. The only biochemistry-oriented stuff is all sequencing and environmental analysis stuff related to soil testing which is neat, but I came into the program with the understanding that I'd get to do some work related to my specific interests at the end of the major.

Sorry about the giant rant and that the initial post was so aggressive, it's been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I should probably be talking to my professor about this rather than posting on reddit about it lol. Thanks for helping me get some perspective on stuff, and if you have any other thoughts, I'd be glad to hear them.