College Questions???

[addisonda]

O.k. I'm new to the forum and I have some questions on my plans. I have done a lot of research but still have some questions. I'm currently a high school senior planning to enter a community college in oklahoma city for two years. In those two years I plan to earn my Pre-med degree. After that I plan to enter the University of Oklahoma and get a bachelors in zoology. I would get a bachelors in Biology but they do not offer that at the university of Oklahoma. My first two years at the community college I plan to take chem 1 &2, Org. chem 1 & 2, Zoology, Comparitive Vertebrate Anatomy, Physics 1 and 2, 3 semesters of english which is all the requirements for OU Med School. Also at the community college I will take psychology, college algebra, Trig, Am. Fed. Gov't., Humanities 1 & 2, geography, and American History.
Then when at OU I plan to take the rest of the classes for the Zoology degree. The only other classes I think that are important that I will take is cell biology, physiology, microbiology, and calc 1.

I plan to enter OU med school after all that.

Is this good enough? It will be 130+ hours. My other question is is it ok to take most of the classes at the community college or will the med school look down on me for this?

Another question is how should I plan my first two years? I won't have a job and I was wondering how many hours I should take? How many do normal pre-meds take? I already have at least 300 hours of volunteer work in an emergency room.
Any criticism or suggestions would be nice. Thank you for your help.

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[Agent Splat]

Here's my quick advice...I don't think you can really get a "degree" in premed. You just fulfill the premed requirements of a medical school. You can do this while working on any major you want in college. You can major in zoology, photography, or 24th century Californian Literature if you want. All you gotta do is take the classes a med school requires. And do well on the MCAT and stuff. But don't worry about that just yet.

My recommendation is to go right to a 4 year university or college and work on your bachelor's degree right away, taking care of your premed requirements at the same time. Depending on your major, some of those classes will overlap anyway. Your first year, try to get general bio out of the way. Other than that, you have a bit of flexibility. Others will give you more information, I'm sure.

Best,
mdb

 

[brats800]

welcome to our happy forums to answer your questions....

1) i really don't know if colleges look down @ communtiy classes vs. regular college classes. i'd assume that if you make sure the classes are comparable (same # of semester credits, still have a lab), then OU would accept those as transfer credits so they would still appear on your OU transcript (you'd need to send the community college transcript to amcas, too, but having them on your OU one would look good).

2) if your GPA and MCAT are both solid, then it probably doesn't matter as much about where those classes are from. but you better get A's if you're taking them at the community school. i'd think a C from a community college would look ugly.

3) as a premed, i took 18 hours/semester (more or less...i swam too, so sometimes that # went down to 16ish)...if you won't have a job, you should easily be able to handle 16-18 hours and some volunteering if you still wanted to.

4) if you have 300+ hours of volunteer work in an ER, that's awesome. it'll look great in your applications. adcoms want to see that you know what you are getting in to. so if you still want to do some volunteering, maybe try something else for a change. organize a job-shadow of a doc (maybe even in the ER, if that's what you are interested in.) if you haven't done any research, do some research. it looks good, too. if you wanted to volunteer somewhere else doing something else medical, go for it. if you want to stay in the ER, do that too, but try and get some more broad experiences volunteering.

and 5) is most important. HAVE FUN! you have the plan all laid out in front of you. it might change. be flexible. don't stress out. enjoy college. keep the goal in mind, but stay cool and enjoy it. college should be fun, even for us nerdy premeds.

 

[addisonda]

Ok thanks for the information. I know OU and the Community College I go to will transfer all the credits i mentioned. another question is like what classes should I NOT double up on in a semester? or are they all pretty much not that bad? How many hours should i take in the summer? or how many do normal pre meds take? Out of all the premed classes which ones are the hardest, like which ones do most people not make a's on? and does anyone know anything about ou's med school? is it pretty cool or what or are they really strict and stuff there? anybody with experiance there? thanks for the info

 

[brats800]

when you double up on premed courses, the more lab classes you take at the same time, the crazier your life will be. they take a lot of time and everything, but people can do it. people vary with what they find most difficult, but i found organic chem to be most difficult. the other class that some people i know really found hard was physics. but that's a very personal thing so you'll just have to find out what you like and are good at and what you don't like and aren't too good at.