Any Psychology majors out there who are also pre-med??

[Starlingbruin]

Hi! I'm currently a psychology major prospectively transferring to UCLA. I am interested in psychology but also ultimately going to med school. Any advice?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Tan008]

I did a PSYC major (honors degree) congruently with a Life Sciences (general) degree. Taking Psyc courses (neuroscience) was actually one of the things that made me so eager to pursue medicine as a career.

 

[DrYoda]

Psych seems to be one of the more popular pre-med majors at my school. I am personally not a psych major though.

 

[RySerr21]

I'm not a psych major (used to be a minor) but I have taken a lot of psychology courses. I find them very interesting and extremely applicable to any career that where you be dealing with people (obviously), but even more so in medicine. If anything it has helped me understand the importance ofthe healthcare team and really helped me define what "quality health care" is. There is so much more to being healthy (or getting healthy) than seeing a doctor and taking medication. You cant have a healthy body if you dont have a healthy mind!

 

[Premed Worrier]

psych is my major and chem is my minor

I have enjoyed psychology very much, but it was much more difficult for me than the pre-requisite science classes for med. school. If I could go back and change one thing I would do a Biochemistry or Physics major along with my Psychology major.
I agree that the neurosciencey type classes are the best, but try to remember that you will learn all that in med. school or soon thereafter.
With that being said, declaring psychology as my major was the first step along the path of my decision to become a physician.

 

[wurm]

I'm not sure how psyc is at UCLA but at my school the psyc major was kind of a joke. I took a couple of psyc classes at my school and they were ridiculously easy. The reason why I bring this up is because it will be very difficult to make the transition from taking less demanding psyc classes to actual medical school classes. If you really do love psyc, then I suggest double majoring and studying something related to biology which will greatly help you with the MCAT and provide you with a basic understanding of biology that will be very helpful to you in medical school. I'm not saying that it is one hundred percent necessary to study biology before you go to med school because there are many students who don't study it and do fine, but it will be easier.

 

[Starlingbruin]

Thanks everyone for the responses! I'm actually very interested in many different subjects... but obviously i can't have 5 majors! So what I've decided to do is major in psychology, minor in neuroscience, and take pre-med courses all at UCLA. I'm thinking that some of the neuroscience courses should overlap with the pre-med reqs anyways? I'm not sure though....

 

[RySerr21]

Thanks everyone for the responses! I'm actually very interested in many different subjects... but obviously i can't have 5 majors! So what I've decided to do is major in psychology, minor in neuroscience, and take pre-med courses all at UCLA. I'm thinking that some of the neuroscience courses should overlap with the pre-med reqs anyways? I'm not sure though....

maybe if there is like an intro level bio course requirement to get in to the upper level neuroscience courses, but other than that, I cant see why they would require you to take any other pre reqs. Well, maybe chemistry, but I doubt they would require you to take physics or ochem. Im just guesing tho, i dont really know.

 

[aggie08]

I was!

I loved it.

Just get all your pre-reqs in and you're good to go.

 

[MJ is KING]

Yes, I have tons of friends at UCLA who are psychology and psychobiology majors. UCLAs psych program is very strong and in general has great professors. Its a great path for a premed as its not too difficult but will be very interesting and challenging enough. It also adds another dimension to your application. My brother is psych at UCLA and applying this cycle (not on SDN), he has gotten great response at his interviews.

Neurosci minor is also possible but I would NOT recommend it. I mean you would think it helps ur application but its not a significant addition. Stick with psych and try to keep your GPA as high as possible, thats the only advice I have. Psych at UCLA is great. Good luck.

 

[Starlingbruin]

Yes, I have tons of friends at UCLA who are psychology and psychobiology majors. UCLAs psych program is very strong and in general has great professors. Its a great path for a premed as its not too difficult but will be very interesting and challenging enough. It also adds another dimension to your application. My brother is psych at UCLA and applying this cycle (not on SDN), he has gotten great response at his interviews.

Neurosci minor is also possible but I would NOT recommend it. I mean you would think it helps ur application but its not a significant addition. Stick with psych and try to keep your GPA as high as possible, thats the only advice I have. Psych at UCLA is great. Good luck.

Thanks MJ! I'm really looking forward to it. Do you think i'll be able to finish in 2 years?... or is 3 more realistic?

 

[Lukkie]

if you are interested in psychology and also med school, UCLA's psychobiology major is perfect for you. It knocks out all the core prereq classes med schools require like chemistry, physics and biology, and you do psychology core/elective classes.

UCLA also has a neuroscience minor that has a ton of overlap with the other science majors but i'm not sure how that will fit in to your limited time here.

 

[cbrons]

Psych major here ... I love it. I did biology long time ago, law enforcement before that. Now I do psych with a law enforcement minor. The reason stayed with psych is because I love it and I have a ton of research opportunities. I'm currently injecting lab rats in the psychopharm. lab, close to first pub.

 

[Starlingbruin]

if you are interested in psychology and also med school, UCLA's psychobiology major is perfect for you. It knocks out all the core prereq classes med schools require like chemistry, physics and biology, and you do psychology core/elective classes.

UCLA also has a neuroscience minor that has a ton of overlap with the other science majors but i'm not sure how that will fit in to your limited time here.

I was interested in majoring in psychobiology but went with psych now the problem is that I can not change my major since I'm a transfer student.

 

[liquid8r]

Also a Psych major here. No regrets but finding employment during my current gap year has been tough. To those in similar situations, I recommend applying to be a psychiatric or mental health tech. The pay is decent and it is great experience. I may change my mind in the future, but I am really starting to lean toward psychiatry as a specialty.

There were times when I would grow nervous about the nature of information I was learning with the major because it was highly abstract and theoretical. Looking back, it was a nice change of pace from my science base with a decent amount of overlap as well.

 

[DO_doctor]

i am a psychology and biology major!!

psych is good, especially the neurosci classes

 

[eight sat up]

.

 

[JokerMD]

sdfsdf

 

[ponybreeder4]

Psychobio at ucla here...the pre-reqs are rather difficult and the same as for al premeds, havent done any upper divs yet but hopefully they wont be too bad as i need to raise my gpa!

 

[bobbyjoey]

Difference between Psychobiology and Psychology major and Biology minor?

 

[bobbyjoey]

As I am interested in psychobiology, wondering if many universities offer that as an undergrad. major.

 

[Crito]

UCLA does

 

[imtotallynotbradpitt]

Difference between Psychobiology and Psychology major and Biology minor?

To give you a general impression of what Psychobiology is, here are the core courses you take:

Life Sciences 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 23L (1 year of biology + lab)
Chemistry 14A & 14B & 14BL & 14C & 14D (1 year gen chem and 1 year ochem with lab)
Mathematics 3A & 3B & 3C (1 year calculus)
Physics 6A & 6B & 6C (1 year physics)

Psychology 10: Introductory Psychology
Psychology 100A*: Psychological Statistics
Psychology 100B*: Research Methods in Psychology
Psychology 110: Fundamentals of Learning
Psychology 115*: Principles of Behavioral Neuroscience
Psychology 116*: Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory
Psychology 120A or Psychology 120B: Cognitive Psychology or Sensation and Perception
http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/schedule/catalog.aspx?sa=PSYCH++&funsel=3

it's a great major for pre-med psych major since all pre-reqs are represented.

 

[themoonman2]

I majored in psych at UCLA and graduated there in 2013. First off, you won't have time to minor in neuroscience and take the pre-med science classes while majoring in psych- you can do probably do one or the other, but it will be challenging. You're going to want to get involved in a lab, volunteer at the hospital (I recommend the Clinical Care Extender program), and/or join clubs, so the time commitment to your classes would be completely unreasonable if you did both. There are easy classes and hard classes as a psych major. The child psych ones are generally easy, the very neurosciency psychobiology ones are often crosslisted as neuroscience classes and you'll have people from almost any pre-med major in the classes- they're the more difficult ones, but if you work hard, you'll do fine. Use www.bruinwalk.com to look up professors- it's often better than ratemyprofessor.com. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any.