When I started college as a freshman I enjoyed the biology classes. My thoughts and hate for biology started to grow as I learned more about a career as a scientist. I took a couple of small bio courses (nutrition, botany, and biotech) my sophomore year and didn't mind the nutrition and biotech courses, but I down right hated having to memorize the name of plants, the classification of plants, and on, and on, and on. I then spent a summer as an intern in a lab. I didn't mind working in the lab, but the way the scientists lived their life I wanted no part of. I want to be rewarded for my hard work. I don't want to work 10 hour days and the only thing I have to show for it is 3 PCR runs, a couple of gel runs, and a run to the sequencing plant. No!!!!! I want more out of my life. So then I went back to college my junior year to continue taking the biology and other science courses. I avoided every non human related biology course I could. I was lucky and could take all human biology related courses my junior year in college. The biology courses I took my junior year included genetics, human development, and genetics in society. I also took my biochem course. I hated every single second of my general chemistry and organic chemistry classes. I enjoyed the biochemistry class though.
Then came my senior year (finally done with college in 30 days f-ya). I lucked out and had the chance to take anatomy in the first semester. But this semester I'm taking zoology and I would rather fight in Iraq then have to memorize groups of animals, names of animals, where the heart is, how sexual reproduction occurs (I learned that in four classes already. for god's sake, teach something different), animal phyla, etc, etc, etc. I hate every second I spent my time in that zoology course. Every single classmate of mine in that zoology class hates it because nobody in the class wants to become a scientist (we all want to go into the medical field in some role, PA, MD, Pharmacist, Therapist, etc). We all spend our time bickering to each other about how bad we hate it. The only other bio course I'm taking this semester is immuno. I don't mind immuno. The material is really easy to me.
After my freshman year in college I learned how to study for biology courses and have found the rest of the classes to be boring and not all that interesting. I enjoyed writing the research papers on topics we chose. This was the time when I enjoyed reading and writing about science and medicine.
I got lucky and I got an Internet based job with an academic publishing company. I work from home for this position. I really enjoy the work. I edit science and medicine textbooks. I didn't even need a science degree for this job. All that was required was a B.S. degree and and a strong grasp of English. All I had to do was take an editing test. I was hired. My other job I'll be starting in a few weeks. This job is a healthcare recruiter. I make a base pay of $40k as a recruiter and $35k as an editor. My first year out of college I'll be making $75k (I can reach ~100k with commission). Guess what, none of the biology courses I took are related to what I do. Sure I recall what this word means when I'm editing book pages, but It doesn't matter at all. My job is to make sure the material is understandable and flows.
Biology degrees are not alone with the unelessnes of the mateiral in the real world. The majority of undergraduate degrees are useless in a material aspect. I've spoken to a lot of professionals in a lot of professions and the common theme is that you will learn what you need to know when you start your first career job. You won't really use anything you learned as a college student in your career.
I still plan on going into the medical field, but not right now. I want to get away from school for a year or two.
To the O.P. Yes, you can hate biology as much as you want. Bascially none of the material is relevant to being a doctor (no, you won't need to know how many carbons are in this molecule, how to name it, and how this reaction works....that is the job for the scientsits who make the drugs). If you enjoy reading medical journal articles, then you may not hate medical school material.
Imagine, al those pre-meds graduating with B.A. degrees in biology....
