Computer science major and pre med?

[AspiringDoc411]

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Has anyone done a computer science major along with pre med? If so, how has it gone?

How difficult would it be to complete the Computer Science AB degree on page 28: https://hpa.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/files/2018-19_hpa_major_mapping.pdf

 

[Dr panda]

I saw few people on this forum who were CS major. If you are smart enough to be admitted to Princeton, then you are absolutely smart enough to complete CS major.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Hi!

There's dozens of us! Dozens!

It's gonna be hard honestly. I am guessing you're going to Pton for undergrad which is known for grade deflation, but really it's not an easy path into med school unless you are really passionate about it and know that you will be able to do well and be in the top 10% of your class (which is hard in a normal school, and further hard at an Ivy). This isn't meant to be discouraging, but I know personally that my GPA suffered from computer science courses, and from the time I need to allocate to CS courses that would've gotten me more studying time for science courses.

Now that I am done with the negatives, there are positives. CS is still pretty lucrative and if you land an internship and still do things expected from CS majors, you can land into a good career without requiring an MD/DO. This is the biggest advantage you will have over bio majors who otherwise will have a useless bachelors. Further, computer science knowledge allowed me to land amazing research gigs with professors because chances are many hard science professors may have some computational projects that they simply do not have the knowledge to do themselves, and not have many undergrads in CS wanting to do research. Also you will certainly stand out from the sea of biology majors, and if you can tie your major into medicine (which trust me is easy as hell with CS), you will certainly have something to talk about. HOWEVER none of this matters if your GPA starts hovering around low 3.0's because of the insane workload that you put yourself under.

Are you locked into Princeton? Honestly it might be better off to go to a lower level undergrad and get a comparable CS education where you could certainly do well given that you are bright enough to get into Pton.

 

[AspiringDoc411]

Hi!

There's dozens of us! Dozens!

It's gonna be hard honestly. I am guessing you're going to Pton for undergrad which is known for grade deflation, but really it's not an easy path into med school unless you are really passionate about it and know that you will be able to do well and be in the top 10% of your class (which is hard in a normal school, and further hard at an Ivy). This isn't meant to be discouraging, but I know personally that my GPA suffered from computer science courses, and from the time I need to allocate to CS courses that would've gotten me more studying time for science courses.

Now that I am done with the negatives, there are positives. CS is still pretty lucrative and if you land an internship and still do things expected from CS majors, you can land into a good career without requiring an MD/DO. This is the biggest advantage you will have over bio majors who otherwise will have a useless bachelors. Further, computer science knowledge allowed me to land amazing research gigs with professors because chances are many hard science professors may have some computational projects that they simply do not have the knowledge to do themselves, and not have many undergrads in CS wanting to do research. Also you will certainly stand out from the sea of biology majors, and if you can tie your major into medicine (which trust me is easy as hell with CS), you will certainly have something to talk about. HOWEVER none of this matters if your GPA starts hovering around low 3.0's because of the insane workload that you put yourself under.

Are you locked into Princeton? Honestly it might be better off to go to a lower level undergrad and get a comparable CS education where you could certainly do well given that you are bright enough to get into Pton.

No. I am going to attend a different school. I thought the PowerPoint was a good template to decide how I should schedule out my classes. Are you currently attempting to complete a BA or a BS?

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

No. I am going to attend a different school. I thought the PowerPoint was a good template to decide how I should schedule out my classes. Are you currently attempting to complete a BA or a BS?

I transferred from a school that did B.S. to a B.A., but that means literally nothing in terms of rigor or curriculum. In fact my current school has much harder classes, and is just generally more rigorous. It's not MIT, but it's a pretty well sized and well known program, so I'd not worry about B.A. B.S. distinctions. One thing to keep in mind is that schools will have widely different curriculums in regards to how many CS courses you can take. Thankfully my school has a philosophy of rather minimal majors, allowing one to get an honors degree (pretty much CS but with a required GPA and a lot more classes) or a double major. It pairs pretty well with premed. I'd suggest looking into individual school curriculum before making a choice on school, since there is no one computer science curriculum really anywhere.