This is a class I plan on taking next quarter.

The topic is "Mathematical modeling of cancer". The course will introduce the students to cutting-edge research in cancer modeling and expose them to a wide variety of mathematical tools. These tools are not specific to cancer modeling and can be used in a great variety of research areas.

The course will combine elements of mathematical modeling, dynamical systems and applied stochastic processes. The instructor will give introduction to all these topics. We will talk about cancer initiation and progression, dangerous mutations, Darwinean selection acting upon cells, chromosomal instability, stem cells, and treatment of cancer. The course will be based on Komarova's book, "Computational biology of cancer: lecture notes and mathematical modeling".

I know, it sounds really cool, until you get to this part:

The only prerequisites are undergraduate Ordinary Differential Equations and Probability.

Ooh. I have taken undergrad probability, and got very little out of it (for an instant I thought maybe I'd double major in math and stats, until I took probability and realized that statistics is boring). As for ODEs, I've spent most of my infant mathematical career getting heart palpitations at the mention of differential equations, so I think I'm going to sit in on the lower division course on diff eqs this quarter and pretend I'm a freshman again. Rock.