Double Major

Any major will be mostly irrelevant in med school. Do what you enjoy. Tacking on a second major will be difficult, but doing one in the humanities won't be too bad. You'll take care of all of your electives that way, for sure. If you choose not to go to med school, the only humanities majors I can think of that are reasonably marketable are journalism and business.

 

I definatly suggest taking at least 1 course in the major before declaring it your second major. That way, if you decide you don't like it, you don't have to mess with the hassle of transferring it. Do whatever you enjoy though, college is supposed to be a good experience, not just work to get into med school.

 

Have you considered doing a minor in biology or in liberal arts?

 

I was a science/humanities major and it was both amazing and terrible. Amazing because you're right, it's hard to focus only on science when you have a bunch of other interests. Science is dry stuff. It was also terrible, however, because it does double your workload, and I can't tell you how hard it is to switch gears all the time, studying endlessly for a science exam, memorizing all the information, working on a zillion science problem sets, and suddenly having to interpret poetry and write prettily about it. It requires mental agility. On the other hand, I found my college experience much more fulfilling because I got to do a bit of both, and I got to take advantage of some amazing liberal arts professors and stuff.

My main advice would be not to short-change yourself, but definitely give yourself enough time to see if it's what you really want to do and if you can really do EVERYTHING. You're not gonna get "extra credit" for doing two majors, and the med schools couldn't care less (although a non-bio major, in my opinion, definitely stands out more). You won't be able to get away with a lower gpa, lower mcat, or less involvement in EC's just cause of your majors. It might seem ridiculous, but unfortunately that's how it is. So when you start school, start slow. Take a couple of classes here and there, and see how much work your sciences, ONE major (whichever one you like better), EC's, volunteering, etc require. Then, if you find that you have the extra time, tack on whatever else you want.

Incidentally, if you want to major in, say, film, and you're only majoring in bio cause you think it'd help, just major in film. It really doesn't matter what you major in, and again, a non-bio major is more interesting, if anything.

 

Minor's generally aren't that far off from a major, but the requirments to get them are much less strict. I actually am considering doing a double major along with my minor (Bio-Pre-Med major w/ a chem and psyc minor) but we'll see how things go! I plan on taking a few J-term and Summer term classes to make sure I get everything done.

 

Hahahaha oh yes, I remember that. I'm the same exact way. I actually really think it's great, you're gonna come out of college having had an awesome experience and a well-rounded education. That's what college is for! DEFINITELY be cautious, though. Whatever you choose to do, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot. Start small and add things slowly. And yay for doing everything!

Incidentally, my "crazy" educational background has come up in med school interviews and the interviewers have always been very supportive of my "but how could I only pick one thing to do?! So I just did everything" attitude. Nevertheless, it definitely contributed to bringing my GPA down a bit. Oh well

 

I was a Neuroscience and Psychology double degree student in college (like a double major, but since one is a BS and one is a BA, there is no course overlap allowed). I also accumulated quite a few minors before I graduated, but that was pretty much accidental...

Yes, you will have more in the way of required courses if you decide to double major - this will mean that you have a harder time scheduling your classes, and that you have less room for electives that are out in left field. However, doing a double major does not mean that you have to give up anything truly substantial. Plenty of people have managed to do it without sacrificing their grades, hobbies, or social lives.

As for whether your other degree will be useful - that is totally up to you. The things I learned from my theatre minor help me every week (I work at a theatre when I'm not in lecture), but the things I learned from my psych major really don't help me in any way. If you love something, you'll find a way to do it through medical school and your career as a physician.

There is just one general thing I want to point out - you don't walk right into college and declare your major except in very rare situations (for example, engineering majors). Take your time in college and play around with courses you find interesting. If you have found a second subject you like by the time the end of sophomore year rolls around, declare it as a second major. Either way, you get to spend time taking the things you like.

PS - the "just do everything" attitude was mine as well. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something just because other people haven't done it successfully. You are the only one who can determine what your limits are, just be smart about it.

 

If you major in two unrelated areas of study it will make it harder to complete all the requirements withing 4 years. Especially if the majors are in different colleges within the university you are attending (i.e. the Institute of Technology and The College of Liberal Arts) since they may each have their own set of general education requirements that don't line up with eachother exactly. If you think you *love* something other than Biology you can always just major in that and you won't be putting yourself at a disadvantage if/when you apply for medical school, because medical schools like to see people other than bio majors applying to their school. I majored in finance and marketing, but it was easy to do them both because they were both offered the school of managment at my university so all of the gen ed requirements were the same for each and then I just had to take some extra upper division classes. It still took me 5 years though because on top of all that I took the med-school prereqs and some additional science courses. So if you want to graduate in 4 years without possibly putting too much food on your plate then just pick the one major you *love* or maybe consider getting a minor in another area of study like someone suggested a little earlier.

 

Usually you are allowed to be undeclared for 1-2 years, but after this point you must declare a major. If you can't decide off the back, wait a year and take a wide range of courses to figure out what you want to do. Good luck!

 

I think it is entirely possible to do two majors at once. However, I think if you want to fit both in, you might need to do some planning for the next four years.

 

I can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet, but if you are interested in everything, why not just declare the bio major and take random classes that interest you? That way you get a taste for a lot more subjects without having to confirm to the confides of a second set of degree requirements. For the vast majority of humanities and social science majors, there isn't really a set career path anyway, so the vast majority of graduates work in careers unrelated to their majors, and therefore you would not really be missing anything by not having a humanities major. And of course, if you find you really love a social science or humanities discipline you can always declare it later and at worst extend your undergraduate career a bit. Granted, I don't even take my own advice (I have one biological science major and two social science majors) so why should you?

 

I did a degree in biology & philosophy and completed both degrees with some electives to spare (and core classes filled). It's definitely doable if you plan your semesters accordingly. I didn't declare my second major until my senior year & I didn't start taking classes for it until the end of sophomore year (I kind of fell into it). But like others have said, it doesn't have to be a major. Check out the requirements of whatever major you are interested in. If they are really rigid then consider doing a concentration or just taking them for fun. You will have plenty of time to figure this out & plenty of advisors to help you along the way.

 

hmm well I'm double majoring. Biology and Creative Writing. and my school is sorta weird so I'm minoring in Humanistic Studies.

I love, love, love creative writing. It is the greatest thrill. So yeah, I'm going to persue it in college. In order to do internships and stuff I want.. i need a science major so there ya go.. but I really do like biology so it doesn't matter.

 

Those are some very good questions that I would love to hear the answers to actually. I've never really understood the hours thing... but I've always heard that if you take 15 hours it's considered full-time (That's 5 classes a semester or 5 1-3 hour classes 2 or three times a week). With a double major and them overlapping and what not I have absolutely no clue though.

 

That depends on whether you are trying to get a BS or a BA in Biology. If you are getting the same kind of degree in two fields (i.e. a BA in English, and another BA in Biology) you are allowed to have some overlap. At my college, you could have three courses count towards both degrees.

On the other hand, if you want a BS in Biology, and a BA in English, this is considered a dual degree rather than a double major and there is usually no overlap allowed. This would mean that you would need to take different classes to fulfill each requirement.

It is my understanding that "hour" and "credit" usually mean the same thing. In general, the number of credits you get for a class is equal to the number of hours you spend in that class per week (for example, a 4 credit class is 4 hours per week).

 

I think the usual protocol is to allow the one class to count for both majors, but I know there are some schools that would require you to take a math class for each major.

Generally, a class's credit hours represent how many hours per week you will spend in that class. There are cases where this system is woefully inaccurate - most notably with labs - but it holds for the most part. You'll hear a bunch of fairly bogus guidelines like "study 2 hours per week for each credit hour, and you'll do fine." Studying is personal and dependent on what classes you're taking, so you may get by with little to no studying or have to study your butt off at all times just to stay afloat.

I found 15-16 to be good when I had one or no labs and maybe 13 when I either really hard classes or several labs to be ideal. You need at least 12 hours to be considered a full-time student. Most classes will count for 3 hours.

 

Not overlapping that's 25 hours a semester which would be killer, but if you're up to it...

If you did it in 5 years instead of 4 though it's 20 hours which is slightly more realistic... and then only 16-17 hours if you spread it over 6 years. But you have to keep in mind you still have Med School and residency and all that... it would be a lot of school and much more expensive.

I would check up on the overlapping thing... or maybe minor?

I could be totally wrong though... correct me if I am guys...

Also (if you're a junior or senior) AP's and Early Scholar classes may count at some universities for hours aswell depending on scores and transfering... that might help you a lot. If all goes well I'll have quite a few out of the way just from "high school" classes.

 

Oh! And I didn't include if you took summer classes; that could lighten your load a bit too.

I s'pose it would depend on the college again... but I think it would be crazy to make you take the same exact class twice when you already know the material.

My uncle was a double major at Auburn in architecture and business and he did it in 6 years and loved it. Then again he didn't have to pay for Med School as well though; but if you really like college I guess it wouldn't be so crazy.


Do you know where you're going?

 

I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between how many credits are required for a degree and how many credits are required to graduate. Most schools require between 120-140 credits for graduation, but you may meed the requirements for a major by taking as few as 10 courses. For example, my psychology degree required 10 courses (approx. 40 credits). Biology generally requires more courses (because you are also required to take math, chemistry, etc), but you should be able to meet the requirements for both degrees, even without overlap, without taking more than 100 credits.

When you enter college, your school will tell you which of your AP classes they will count for credit. If a school offers you credit for a class you have taken, then yes, you can use it to fulfill your degree requirements. I did that with statistics - I used my AP stat credit to count towards my psych degree, and took a biostatistics course in college to count for the neuro degree.

One thing to be careful of though - colleges will usually give you credit in place of a specific class. If you choose to take that class despite being exempt, you will lose your AP credit. For example, if you told that your AP credit will count for Chem 101, and you take Chem 101 in college anyway, your AP credit pops into oblivion.

 

To answer your earlier question, I think that most people take about 16 credit hours per semester, but there is a ton of variation from student to student. I knew people in college who took 12, and personally I usually took between 25 and 30 each semester.

The easiest thing is to start off with a schedule you find manageable, and alter your courseload until you are comfortable. If you take 16 credit hours your first semester and it is too hard, scale it back. If it is too easy, add more courses the next time around.

 

That sounds a tad extreme... did you look to see which required classes were the same? If there were that is.

 

Erm, I'm thinking here that the same classes count as 'overlapping' when they're required. For instance if Calc I is required for both it will overlap, but if it says 9 hours of math courses required then you might not be able to count them for both because it wants hours rather than specific courses...

If that makes any sense at all...

For example at UNA they require EN 111, and EN 112 for all students, they won't make you take them twice. However they give you a wide range of choices of Humanities and Fine Arts Classes but only require 12 hours. Those are the classes they might make you take more of... not the same classes but a larger variety in the same category.

I hope that helps a bit...

* This is core classes though; if you were a humanities major I'd expect they'd require you to take more.

 

Yes...120-126 hours will be required for them to grant you a degree (i.e. let you graduate), but the requirements to fulfill a MAJOR are much much different. If you check with the specific departments at your school, you will probably find that the classes required for each major add up to between 40 and 80 credit hours. If you are doing a dual degree, the specific classes you need for each major cannot overlap, but as long as all of the courses you take add up to 126 credit hours, you should be able to get both degrees.

For example:
40 credits for major 1 + 80 credits for major 2 + 10 credits for required classes, electives, etc = 130 credits = more than enough to graduate with both degrees.

To answer your other question. No overlap allowed means that you cannot use one class to fulfill requirements for two different majors if one is a BS and one is a BA. This usually isn't a problem, because if you are trying for two majors that have a decent amount of overlap, they are usually both BS degrees or both BA degrees (and thus, some overlap is allowed).

I do hope this is making sense, it's a little bit difficult to explain on a forum. You can PM me if you are still completely lost.

Oh, and I did graduate with about 220 credits, but fewer than 130 of them were actually needed for my degrees. I used the others for my minors, other science electives, or just for fun. I was already paying for the semesters, so I figured that I might as well get as much from them as I could.

 

Hmmm the credit thing is ENTIRELY dependent on the university, I think. My school had a "college of arts and sciences" that had the same core requirements for BA and BS, so the core classes I took counted toward both. I then took the various classes for the majors, none of which overlapped, but the two majors had nothing to do with each other so they wouldn't have overlapped anyway. Some of my premed (not a major, obviously) classes counted toward my science major, though. So let's say that there were 15 classes for my science major and 15 for my humanities major and 10 for premed and 10 for my school's "core". Of the 10 core classes, about 2 counted for premed (the science and math parts of the core), 2 counted for my humanities major (the humanities part of the core), and the rest were basically random (the school will also have a cap on how many classes in your core can be counted toward your major). Of the premed ones, maybe 3 counted toward the science major. So as you see, there CAN BE some overlap, if your school allows it and you're smart about how you set up your schedule. This is what advisors are for, but you should definitely spend some time reading the academic handbook for your UG to figure out their exact policies, and start drawing up a VERY tentative schedule based on the classes that will be most "convenient" (for example, pick a bio-major elective like neuroscience that can also count as a psych class- this is entirely based on the school by the way, im just making an example- and satisfies the "social science" component of your core; or pick a bio-major elective like bioethics that's very writing-intensive and might count toward your writing core requirement, etc).

 

This was the same at my school. I double-majored in marketing and finance and was able to finish them in 4 years. All of the gen ed requirements and general business degree requirements were the same, so I just had to take 16-17 credits/semester to get in the additional upper division credits in each major and I was golden. Both majors were for a B.S. degree in the same college within my University, however I know people who took courses that were offered by different colleges at the same University that overlapped to cover for degree requirements in another college. So I'm guessing that this is obviously University-specific based on what a few of us have said. Although it seems to me that most Universities have core general ed/liberal ed requirements that are required by every student at the University (which would most likely be overlapped when you double-major) and then individual majors/colleges within the University can tack on their own requirements to get your degree (which may or may not overlap with that of another major/college)

 

I started off as a Biology/Music double major in college and found it to be extremely grueling. With all the hours I spent practicing violin or running experiments in the lab, I had almost no free time as a freshman. I was always stressed out and was barely passing my classes. I eventually ended up dropping music and stuck with just bio.

Granted, a music major is probably a bit more involved than most other humanities majors, so I would look very carefully at the necessary time commitment to take on a second degree.

 

Does a double major help in any way towards getting a residency or such?

 

No. Double major doesn't really help to even getting into med school, let alone anything past that.

 

really, each school is different on credits. if your school is like mine, when you choose your classes, you go up there and talk to your advisor for freshman year. I THINK your whole 120/126 thing is that... it takes that much to GRADUATE....

which means if you just majored in biology... you would have X amount of hours (usually around 50-60) for your major and then X number of hours for your general ed requirements. The rest of the remaining credits would equal 120... so MAJOR + General eds + extrra = 120 People use those "extra" credits to make a minor, another major, or both out of it.

At my school, a lot of courses overlap for me. But make sure with your school how it all works... like I said that day when you go talk to your advisor will be awesome for you.

 

I don't believe so. If you check the websites of the medical schools, they tend to say that you should apply once their admissions requirements have been met.

I'm currently double majoring in Biochemistry and French, and for me, it's been manageable. What made this possible was all the AP credits I claimed. They pretty much took care of my "core" (i.e. English, History, etc.) requirements for my degrees so that I could just focus on the courses that apply to Biochem/French.

Like others have mentioned before, it's nice to have a break from all the science intensive classes, especially when you're studying something you're really interested in .

 

Hmm, perhaps with the humanities credits you have more flexibility. I was thinking that you should have the bio/chem/physics completed by the time you apply. Not all schools make English a requirement, so it depends. Also, humanities is "strongly recommended" by most, not required, so perhaps you can get away with taking them after you apply.

 

Most, if not all medical schools allow you to take their prerequisite courses any time you like - as long as you complete them before matriculating. Several people on SDN (and in the rest of the world) took prereq classes either during second semester of senior year or during the summer before entering medical school.

The argument for taking the courses before applying is that several prereqs are good preparation for the MCAT - however, it is possible to prep and do well on the MCAT without taking all the core science courses first. In my opinion, the more viable argument for taking the required courses early on is that you have the chance to retake if you are unable to pass for some reason. Taking prereqs late won't keep you out of medical school, but failing to pass all of the courses before entering medical school would be a whole different ball game.

One more thing - don't stress yourself out by trying to schedule all 4 years of undergraduate before you even begin. Class timing and availability changes from year to year and you have no guarantee that you won't want to switch majors once you attend college. Furthermore, it isn't uncommon for some classes to fill up quickly, and you have no guarantee that you'll get to take everything you want when you want it. For now, just think about your first semester. Take some courses you think you'll need, and some you think you'll enjoy, and see how it goes from there.

 

Kindred spirit here! *waves hand* That is MY life, too, in a nutshell.
I don't think you're suggesting this, but definitely do NOT go to a technical school, and go to a liberal arts. Also, the way I understand it, medical schools are not looking for any particular major as long as you fulfill requirements, right? Perhaps you could just do a major in English or Humanities and apply to med school. As long as your grades are good . . .
But then, you're also talking about having a useful major, which biology is, in case you decide not to go to med school, right?
And of course, as other people have said, you have one, probably two, years to decide. And you can usually switch it after that, even.

Music Major is tough any way you slice it. I hope you did not completely abandon music- you can enjoy it perform without it being a major!!! I look forward to taking music classes and performing on saxophone, clarinet, piano, voice . . . This is one of my main interests outside life sciences- that and creative writing.
Never think that you have to totally drop something, especially if it's something you love, if it's too stressful. Scaling back can work, too.