Scheduling Pre-med Classes

[tokeneconomy]

Hey everyone,
I'm a rising sophomore who entered college as a business major but recently decided to pursue medicine. I'll probably still keep my business major and add a medicine-related one or minor in something medicine-related, but because I didn't enter as a premed, I missed some time to take the pre-req classes. I took gen chem 2 (placed out of gen chem 1 w/ AP credit and didn't know I'd still have to take gen chem 1 when I was registering) last semester, so I have the following required classes left to take:

Bio 1 (ecology - only offered Fall, notoriously easy) & 2 (cell/molecular - only offered Spring, notoriously difficult)
Orgo 1&2
Gen chem 1
Biochem
Physics 1&2
Math? I already took a stats class for my business major and got a 5 on my calc BC exam in high school, but I'm under the impression some schools are lenient on placing out of the math requirement but none are lenient on the chem one.
Psych? New MCAT has it, I have a 5 on that AP exam as well, but not sure if I should still be taking it. I remember most of the stuff from when I took it in high schools, and I'm sure I'd review it when studying for the MCAT anyway.
Sociology - I've taken.
English? I've already taken one writing class and need to take another junior year per university policy - not sure if I need more than that.​

Aside: if relevant, all the classes at my school are 4 credits.

I'm wondering if any of you have advice on how to space these classes out in a shorter time. I came up with the following, assuming I would not need to take math, psych, or english (except the second writing class I need to take anyway). I wouldn't really mind taking math (I'd do calc 3) or psych, because psyc 100 is notoriously easy and I can hold my own in math:

Fall, Sophomore:
Orgo 1
Physics 1
Biochem

Spring, Sophomore:
Bio 2
Orgo 2

Fall, Junior:
Physics 2
Bio 1
Gen chem 1

I know you're all probably better at this stuff than me, so if anyone has any advice, please let me know! Thanks.

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[kyamh]

Whatever happens will be fine. Be careful about setting exact schedule goals far in advance, there is a real possibility that schedules may not work out in your favor or the class may be full.

IN general, I would advise you to stop thinking about the courses and instead to get familiar with who the best professors are. Ask older students, ask many older students. Your experience will heavily depend on professor quality. You will learn better, do better, and probably get better LORs. Follow the best professors and the classes will fall in place. There is no magic order, I took intro bio senior year and it was fine

 

[tokeneconomy]

Thanks! That was actually why I was taking biochem this semester - I'm at an enormous private uni so the classes are normally huge and difficult to establish rapport with professors - biochem is a small experimental class with a professor I've already had who is very good, so I figure that would be a good place to start getting to know professors. Thanks for the advice!

 

[DielsAlder]

I would take gen chem and bio your sophomore year instead. Organic and physics are typically the harder of the prereqs, and it would probably be better to ease into premed a little at first. Save biochem for during or after taking organic. In my experience at least, I took biochem for chem majors and it heavily utilized topics in general, organic, and even math. Definitely take a semester or two of calc at the college level, I heard some schools are lenient about that requirement although my undergrad advised against it. Also, take some liberal arts/humanities/social science courses. I am applying to a lot of schools this cycle, and did not realize how many of them actually had these requirements. Fortunately, I fulfilled many of them anyway by accident.

 

[nicmar22]

I don't know if this is an option for you, but instead of taking 3 science classes in a semester, you could take one of them during the summer semester to lighten your load.

 

[Time Table]

I'd switch the schedule around a little bit. Take Gen Chem 1, Bio 1, and Physics 1 Fall sophomore. Take orgo 1, physics 2, and Bio 2 spring sophomore. Take Biochem and orgo 2 fall junior year. What I did was organize everything in sequence with a logical flow. this will make bio ahem not a living nightmare for you.

 

[allantois]

Taking Biochem before Orgo as well as Gen Bio 2( in your case), hmmm I don't know about that. I don't get why you still have to take Gen Chem 1, but that will be very easy for you. Don't retake Psych.
Also, my school too teaches ecology in Bio 1 so overall I do not believe that only taking 2 semesters of Gen Bio will provide me enough Biology content for MCAT. That's just something to think about.

 

[raiderette]

At my school biochem isn't allowed until orgo 2. Isn't that normal? Seems that there are concepts that overlap.

 

[RTC19]

At my school biochem isn't allowed until orgo 2. Isn't that normal? Seems that there are concepts that overlap.

That's very normal. My college doesn't allow students to take Biochemistry until both semesters of O-Chem have been completed.

 

[tokeneconomy]

Re: biochem, it is a course created this semester tailored for non-science majors to satisfy the impending biochem requirement for entrance to medical school and the biochemistry on the mcat. Science majors must take molecular bio before the standard biochemistry class, which is different. Would you advise going the mol bio/biochem route? The only prereq for either class is general chemistry 2.
Thanks for all of your input!

 

[Time Table]

I would honestly take the standard biochem course, you'll want to learn it like a science major regardless of whether the school treats you like a science major or not. It can only help. If you follow the schedule I put together in my previous post, you'll be able to get a lot more out of biochem than regularly.

 

[tokeneconomy]

Thanks a lot, Time Table. That's what I'm leaning toward.