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Advice for an undergrad!
- Thread starter CaseVB
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I'm not a medical student, but I do have a few things to say, haha.
1) You can't say you know for a fact what you want to be yet. People change their minds all the time.
2) Unless you're after a leadership position or this club offers shadowing opportunities, this Pre-Med club is kind of useless.
3) Keep your GPA as high as possible. One regret many people have is not trying hard enough freshman year.
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I'm applying 2014-2015 for MD IS/OOS and possibly MD PhD OOS.
First tip to "stand out": Ditch the pre-med society if you were only doing it to add it to your resume and future medical school application. Seek a group that really sparks your interests and supplants to your skills and attributes. Do you like music? Spelling bees? Salsa dancing? Are you competitive eater of spam? ->
I play guitar some and get to write for bands around my local scene, it's great stuff!
Enjoy your time as a freshman and sophomore, go out the to city (if you're near one) and explore, start thinking MCAT down the road if you are looking to matriculate right after graduation.
Good luck!
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I'm a recent graduate of Case so I can hopefully give you some helpful advice.
As stated above, I would replace the pre-med society with something more meaningful to you personally unless you already feel really committed or plan to get really involved in the leadership later on in your career.
If you think you're interested in sports medicine, I highly recommend that you look into adding a minor in sports medicine which is offered at Case. Here is a link to information about the minor: http://athletics.case.edu/information/Sports_Medicine/Sports_Medicine_Minor_Brochure.pdf
I would say volunteering at the hospital is a good start especially if you stick with it all four years. You should also seek out other volunteering opportunities as well. I would look into the Civic Engagement scholars program as well as consider joining Alpha Phi Omega, which is a co-ed professional service fraternity. These are both great opportunities to help you find different volunteering activities and APO opens great avenues to gaining leadership experience.
As far as classes go, keeping that GPA as high as possible is obviously of utmost importance. That being said, I would stick with the BA in biochem. Unless you want to grow up to be a biochemist there is really not much of an advantage to doing the BS. You have to take a lot more math and physics classes for the BS which could potentially bring down your GPA with little to no return on investment.
Plus, doing the BA will leave you more room to take other classes you might be interested in, such as the sports med classes or humanities you will need to make you a well rounded applicant or that you might need for the new MCAT. Two of my best friends were both biochem BAs and had plenty of room to do other activities, such as a varsity sport, a second major in spanish, or working in a prion research lab, and now they're both at reputable medical schools.
I would also suggest starting to look for research opportunities. Even if you don't want to start just yet it's a good idea to look into these early, because the longer you wait the less likely you are to ever start (as I know from experience...)
Basically, do things that you enjoy and think you will stick with, not just things that you think will look good to an admissions committee in two or three years. As long as you are involved and show commitment they won't care if you were in a pre-med society or if you were one of the organizers of HvZ.
Let me know here or via DM if you have any other questions.
