Sorry for bringing this up as I know it's been discussed many times, but the information I got by searching is conflicting.
I'm a bit of a nontrad as I'm graduating this winter and have only recently gotten interested in medicine, so I'll take most of my prereqs in a postbac setting (I planned to apply to occupational therapy school but in shadowing OTs I realized I wanted to do something more investigative and intellectual but still work with people). This summer I'll be working full time in a 9-5 setting so I can't really take any classes at a 4-year university. As a San Diego resident, though, I can take night/weekend community college classes at $20/credit (so lab classes are $100/each).
Would it hurt me to take one or two of my prereqs this summer at a CC? I'll take a couple of prereq classes this fall at my regular college and then do the rest either in a formal postbac or informally at a public university, so it wouldn't be like ALL my prereqs are from CCs. Also, my CC system has courses that are specifically tailored to science majors and pre-health/medical programs (they have easy chem, regular chem, and then General Chem I-II, etc, so I'd be in the UC-transferable science student classes, not "regular" community college classes). Would it be better to take other science classes (not prereqs) at the CCs? Obviously I want to get through this process as quickly and cheaply as possible so it seems like a great opportunity, unless just a couple of CC credits will definitely hold me back (in which case it'd be better to spend the time volunteering).
Editing to add:
My undergrad GPA, unless I have an unexpectedly bad semester, will be about 3.1 when I graduate. I'm sure I'll do better in postbacs (the bad grades are from when I didn't have any post-college goals or really care about being there so I put zero effort into a few classes), but obviously I know I need to do several post-bac classes at a university to show I'm not just doing better because I couldn't handle university-level coursework. I'm just wondering if it'll work against me to not do ALL of them there.
I'm a bit of a nontrad as I'm graduating this winter and have only recently gotten interested in medicine, so I'll take most of my prereqs in a postbac setting (I planned to apply to occupational therapy school but in shadowing OTs I realized I wanted to do something more investigative and intellectual but still work with people). This summer I'll be working full time in a 9-5 setting so I can't really take any classes at a 4-year university. As a San Diego resident, though, I can take night/weekend community college classes at $20/credit (so lab classes are $100/each).
Would it hurt me to take one or two of my prereqs this summer at a CC? I'll take a couple of prereq classes this fall at my regular college and then do the rest either in a formal postbac or informally at a public university, so it wouldn't be like ALL my prereqs are from CCs. Also, my CC system has courses that are specifically tailored to science majors and pre-health/medical programs (they have easy chem, regular chem, and then General Chem I-II, etc, so I'd be in the UC-transferable science student classes, not "regular" community college classes). Would it be better to take other science classes (not prereqs) at the CCs? Obviously I want to get through this process as quickly and cheaply as possible so it seems like a great opportunity, unless just a couple of CC credits will definitely hold me back (in which case it'd be better to spend the time volunteering).
Editing to add:
My undergrad GPA, unless I have an unexpectedly bad semester, will be about 3.1 when I graduate. I'm sure I'll do better in postbacs (the bad grades are from when I didn't have any post-college goals or really care about being there so I put zero effort into a few classes), but obviously I know I need to do several post-bac classes at a university to show I'm not just doing better because I couldn't handle university-level coursework. I'm just wondering if it'll work against me to not do ALL of them there.
Last edited:
