I'm applying to med schools now, and I'm very interested in psych too. In college, I tried to divide my time between the premed/science courses I knew would probably make my life easier in med school and the other courses I wanted to take for fun (psych). It's funny, but if you stick to a plan like that and start early (freshman yr) you can probably get two or 3 majors out of it and a minor in the science you like best (bio, biochem, psych, chem minor; or bio, general science, psych, physics minor). Because I was able to double count some stuff from premed towards bio, I wound up with bio/biochem/psych majors and a chem minor, and I wound up taking a lot of classes that at the time annoyed the crap out of me, but actually turned out to be really useful.
- biochemistry; just the general concepts of protein structure, function, and kinetics help you understand what's going at a molecular level.
- organic chemistry; you can think your way out of most problems by learning how molecules interact and how electrons move around in their shells to form new bonds, etc.
- learning and behavior/motivation (usually part of the psych program); interesting to see how lower animals respond to stimuli, how they learn best, and what motivates animals to do what they do.
- experimental psychology/statistics - these two really go together, and just because you've taken them doesn't mean you remember all the formulas, the distributions, and the different ways to analyze data. But it at least exposes you to the concepts of doing research and using math to express conceptual ideas, etc. Experimental should afford the students to do group projects or experiments where you get practice testing people with questionnaires, etc, and then analyzing the data from them. Pretty cool stuff.
- actual research/independent study - if your college has some way for you to work with people doing research on campus, go for it. Psych or science, whatever suits you. If it is available to you and other students, and you don't do it, med school admissions committees might ask you why you *didn't*. You could always join extracurriculars and use that as an excuse, though, so if you hate research, just do other stuff instead. 😉
- psych electives. Generally, as you get further along in college the courses get cooler and cooler. AND, the professors start to care more and more about the classes because they become more focused and specialized (into the prof's area of expertise). This is where you get your best psych experience in undergrad, in my opinion, because the school usually snatches a professor who studies that area to teach the class.
Anyway.
Hope that helps.
I was pretty focused on psych and science. If you want to be more well rounded, go analyze english literature for 4 years. I'm sure you'll have a more than adequate understanding of abnormal psychology by the time you graduate. 😉
Do what you want!
The chance to study anything you want, full-time, and learn about yourself, too--it only lasts 4 years. Have fun with it. And good luck. 🙂
