Scheduling Prereqs

[meliffy18]

I'm taking my PT prereqs at community starting in January. I have a bacc degree in business, so I only need to fulfill the science requirements. I need a lab for all of them and am attending FT. Based on experience, how do you think I should schedule these? I don't want to put too much on my plate since I've been out of school for 7 years, but I don't want it to take forever either. Here are the classes I need:

Bio I & II
Chem I & II
Physics I & II
Anatomy & Physio I & II

Do you think doing all level 1 in the spring then all level 2 in the fall will be too much? Med school is expensive so I want to get the best grades I can so I can hopefully get some kind of academic scholarship.

Thanks!

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[markelmarcel]

I had a friend who did them all at once and her grades suffered as a result. I think she got an A in Chem II, Anatomy and Bio. All the rest were Bs and Cs. With all of the labs, it was too difficult to spend enough time on each subject.

I chose to do Bio I, Chem I and Anatomy. Then Bio II, Chem II and Physiology. Then, I took Physics in the summer and I got 2 Bs and the rest As.

Yes, it took me longer to get through my pre-reqs, but I feel a lot more confident about getting into a program with my higher grades.

And, not sure how the community college is, but at the university where I took my courses the "I" courses are only offered in the fall and "II" only offered in the spring...

Also, you may want to check with the specific schools you are considering to make sure they will accept these courses from a community college. Some programs require that the science clases come from a 4-year bachelor degree granting institute.

Good Luck!

 

[meliffy18]

Thanks! I was thinking about splitting them in a similar way to the way you did, especially since I will probably won't attend med school until Fall '12.

I asked the community college I'm attending how the I & II's are offered before I settled on going there and they said there are so many students that each are offered during both fall and spring semesters. Also, thankfully the 3 med schools I'm applying to accept community credits since I have a degree already so that saves me some money.

 

[markelmarcel]

I asked the community college I'm attending how the I & II's are offered before I settled on going there and they said there are so many students that each are offered during both fall and spring semesters. Also, thankfully the 3 med schools I'm applying to accept community credits since I have a degree already so that saves me some money.

That's great! I'm not sure why (when the university I attended has around 15,000 students) my school only offers "I" in the fall and "II" in the spring... I guess because of the sheer volume of kids that need to get through "I" they don't have enough faculty to offer 20 sections of "I" and 20 sections of "II" in the same semester... Who knows!

Unfortunately for me, the local community college did not offer sciences with labs, so I had to go to the local university (which still all in all only cost about $10,000.) Lucky for me, my parents helped me with my bachelor's degree and offered to help me out with these courses so when I go to PT school it'll be the first amount of debt I make to my name. Scary, but comforting to know, I only have to worry about 3 years of school and not the previous 5 I've done.

 

[markelmarcel]

Also, some more food for thought for you and for those who may be in similiar situations...

Since I decided I didn't want to put all 4 courses onto my schedule and overload myself, it was important to decide which ones to take together.

The school I went to, requires that if you take Chem I, you must either have already completed Bio I, or be taking it at the same time. (Same for Chem II).

Also, knowing that physics is a difficult course that needs a lot of attention, I thought it would be best if I took that course alone, so that I could focus more time on it.

I have had other people tell me that taking chem and physics at the same time was helpful, because they both involve math. And I would think that would be true. I know physics was easier because I had just finished Chem.

Also, since I took 1 course of Anatomy and 1 course of Physiology, it was required that you complete Anatomy before Physiology... With A&P combined, that obviously isn't an issue.

I think the most important thing that I committed to myself was that I was going back to school for something completely unrelated to my original field and I was going to do well in it. I didn't want to bog myself down with a lot of courses. Yes, they are introductory courses, but a lot of times these professors are the professors that help to weed out those scared little 18 year old freshmen, and that can sometimes lead to the material being more difficult than expected. (My Bio I prof absolutely killed us. Ugh. I am still mad about my 89.47% B....)

Plus, for those of us who have been out of school for a number of years, haven't taken these types of courses since high school (or maybe never!), it's important to learn how to balance and get back into "study-mode"

 

[goyo1010]

I'm taking my PT prereqs at community starting in January. I have a bacc degree in business, so I only need to fulfill the science requirements. I need a lab for all of them and am attending FT. Based on experience, how do you think I should schedule these? I don't want to put too much on my plate since I've been out of school for 7 years, but I don't want it to take forever either. Here are the classes I need:

Bio I & II
Chem I & II
Physics I & II
Anatomy & Physio I & II

Do you think doing all level 1 in the spring then all level 2 in the fall will be too much? Med school is expensive so I want to get the best grades I can so I can hopefully get some kind of academic scholarship.

Thanks!

Mhmm. It would be best if you complete the easy ones first, in my opinion. So, I guess for the first semester I would take Bio 1, Anatomy/Physiology 1, and Physics 1. That's I believe already 12 hours with labs. Then I would take the second parts the second semester. Now, with Chemistry (which I believe to be the hardest, but I guess it depends on your school) I would've honestly taken that with the others, but you can take it during the summer so you could concentrate more on the subject. Bio and Anat/Phys are pretty straightforward, you'll probably be studying more concept-wise for Physics.