I do not want to take pre reqs, should I really become a doctor?

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maybedoctor???

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Hello everyone! I need advice. I’m currently a pre med student about to start my junior year of college. I came into college wanting to go into medicine, but found I really loved neuroscience/ psychology, so I changed my mind and decided to pursue a career in research. I took a lot of statistics and research methods classes (which I loved and excelled in) along with getting involved in research with a psych professor and thought I was set.

Then I started looking into the job market for PhDs going into academics and it seemed like a mess, which turned me off to the idea of research as a career. After that I switched back to medicine (which I convinced myself I wanted to do).

Now I’m thinking about the classes I have to take for med school and I’m not deeply interested in a single one of them (except maybe biology). I’m a good student so I could do decently well in these classes, but they’re not my strongest subjects and certainly not where my interests/passions are. This has caused me to think again about working in research instead of medicine (maybe becoming a biostatistician), but I’m not sure if this is the right idea.

So my question is, do you think I should suck it up (for lack of a better term), get through the med school pre reqs and go on to be a doctor OR follow my interests/ skill set and go into research

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I’d say follow your passions - but a couple thoughts:

1) do you not want to do the pre-med pre-reqs (chem/orgo/physics/bio/calc), or are you not interested in medical classes (anatomy/physiology/pharmacology)? If you hate the pre-reqs that’s fine - plenty of people just hold their nose and take them, that’s pretty normal. If you don’t like medicine, then DEFINITELY don’t go the MD route - you will be miserable in med school if you don’t like the material at least a little bit.

2) are you thinking neuro PhD or Psych PhD? Psych job market is a hot mess from my understanding. But a neuroscience PhD is seen as a very high quality Degree with much more reliable job prospects.
 
Now I’m thinking about the classes I have to take for med school and I’m not deeply interested in a single one of them (except maybe biology). I’m a good student so I could do decently well in these classes, but they’re not my strongest subjects and certainly not where my interests/passions are. This has caused me to think again about working in research instead of medicine (maybe becoming a biostatistician), but I’m not sure if this is the right idea.
It seems that you're evaluating your interest or desire for medicine as a career solely based on how much you think you'll like your pre-reqs. This is not the right way to decide between career options.
I switched back to medicine (which I convinced myself I wanted to do).
How did you convince yourself? Was it a mere rationalization with no previous action, or was it based on something more substantial (for example, some personal or clinical experience(s))?

The point is that you should complete your pre-reqs because of your decision to go into medicine, instead of deciding to pursue a career in medicine because of how much you liked those classes.
 
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Hello everyone! I need advice. I’m currently a pre med student about to start my junior year of college. I came into college wanting to go into medicine, but found I really loved neuroscience/ psychology, so I changed my mind and decided to pursue a career in research. I took a lot of statistics and research methods classes (which I loved and excelled in) along with getting involved in research with a psych professor and thought I was set.

Then I started looking into the job market for PhDs going into academics and it seemed like a mess, which turned me off to the idea of research as a career. After that I switched back to medicine (which I convinced myself I wanted to do).

Now I’m thinking about the classes I have to take for med school and I’m not deeply interested in a single one of them (except maybe biology). I’m a good student so I could do decently well in these classes, but they’re not my strongest subjects and certainly not where my interests/passions are. This has caused me to think again about working in research instead of medicine (maybe becoming a biostatistician), but I’m not sure if this is the right idea.

So my question is, do you think I should suck it up (for lack of a better term), get through the med school pre reqs and go on to be a doctor OR follow my interests/ skill set and go into research
Follow your interests and go into research. get an MS, not a PhD and you're set for life. Lab mgrs, research techs, clinical lab tech are always in demand.
 
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Thanks for the responses guys! I left out a lot to keep it as short as possible and not tell my whole life story but let me explain a little more.

I have been thinking about going into medicine for years and have really wanted to be a doctor since I was a kid. How the body works and is affected by disease seems really fascinating, and I want to help people so medicine seemed perfect. But when I got to college I wasn’t so sure if it’s really my “calling” (if you believe in that sort of thing).

I really pulled away from medicine in the first place because the pre reqs didn’t appeal to me whereas psych/neuro/stats/research focused classes really did. I thought that that was better suited for me so I changed my direction. Then I started having doubts about that, and thought if I was going to go through tons of school might as well end up with a solid job (not that $/ job security is all I care about, but I think it’s important to be realistic and practical). So I went back to medicine and convinced myself that I was just nervous to take the pre reqs and this is really what I want to do, since I’ve wanted to do it since I was a kid.

My worries with the pre reqs are: if I don’t like these classes, will I really like medicine? I think it’s interesting now but I haven’t had enough exposure to med-school-like classes to make an informed decision. Plus, even if I really like neuroscience and psych, there’s a whole lot else to medicine that is cool, but I’m not as passionate about.

I guess my question is, is it stupid to base my career decision on what’s interesting now and what I’m best at in school?

I think I could be happy as a researcher or a doctor, but I’m not sure if my greater interest/ talent in classes that point me towards research is a sign that i would be better off there, or if that’s just silly.

Thanks again for responding :)
 
Follow your interests and go into research. get an MS, not a PhD and you're set for life. Lab mgrs, research techs, clinical lab tech are always in demand.

If I go the research route that’d probably be my plan. At least at first I would get an ms (I could do it in just 1 extra year at my school) and then if I really wanted it get the PhD later on
 
I honestly wouldn't want to do research as a stand alone living. It's really stressful apparently. No grants = no job. The new nurse I'm precepting has a PhD in neuroscience, and still does research, but wanted a more stable job (and to interact with patients) so she went nursing.

Why not shadow some doctors in order to decide if its what you want to do?
 
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I honestly wouldn't want to do research as a stand alone living. It's really stressful apparently. No grants = no job. The new nurse I'm precepting has a PhD in neuroscience, and still does research, but wanted a more stable job (and to interact with patients) so she went nursing.

Why not shadow some doctors in order to decide if its what you want to do?


I have actually shadowed a decent amount and at the time I thought it was great but thinking the way I am now I’m not so sure. I shadowed a neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist, endocrinologist, and psychiatrist. I thought all of it was great experience but I couldn’t really see myself doing any of it (except maybe psych, but I am a nosey person so maybe I just like it because I got to hear people talk about their personal lives :) ). When I was shadowing I thought that maybe these just aren’t the specialties for me but now I’m not sure if I should take that as medicine not being for me
 
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Eh, maybe not. I would enjoy being any kind of doctor honestly. Just like I enjoy being a nurse in any capacity. Some areas are more enjoyable than others, but any is acceptable to me (except LTAC. I really feel like those are a scam in large part.)

How much life experience do you have? Taking computer science, random deployment duties, being a cop, and now a nurse has shown me what different areas have to offer.
 
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Im in my molecular foundations block and shoot, I cant imagine having to go through this block without prior background on metabolism and cell signaling. The thing is, aspects of medicine build on your existing knowledge of cell biology and biochem and applies it in a clinical context. So yeah I think prerequisites are pretty essential at least for what I’m learning right now.
Your post reminds me of myself actually. My school offers an MD/MBA track and I was like oh wow that seems cool, and then I found out you need to have a certain amount of prerequisites to be able to start the MBA program. I looked at the prereqs and I was like dang this is not for me I’m not interested in this stuff at all! That’s when I decided I probably only like the idea of having an MBA but probably don’t see myself actually doing anything with it. Not exactly your case but just my 2 cents.
 
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Hello everyone! I need advice. I’m currently a pre med student about to start my junior year of college. I came into college wanting to go into medicine, but found I really loved neuroscience/ psychology, so I changed my mind and decided to pursue a career in research. I took a lot of statistics and research methods classes (which I loved and excelled in) along with getting involved in research with a psych professor and thought I was set.

Then I started looking into the job market for PhDs going into academics and it seemed like a mess, which turned me off to the idea of research as a career. After that I switched back to medicine (which I convinced myself I wanted to do).

Now I’m thinking about the classes I have to take for med school and I’m not deeply interested in a single one of them (except maybe biology). I’m a good student so I could do decently well in these classes, but they’re not my strongest subjects and certainly not where my interests/passions are. This has caused me to think again about working in research instead of medicine (maybe becoming a biostatistician), but I’m not sure if this is the right idea.

So my question is, do you think I should suck it up (for lack of a better term), get through the med school pre reqs and go on to be a doctor OR follow my interests/ skill set and go into research

Why you think doing psych can only land you at academia?

The field of neuropsychology is a fine field with decent job market, and you get to see patients too. You can keep doing research as a PhD level neuropsychologist. If you work in medical center, perhaps you will be required to do so as part of your job duties. You can major in clinical psy with concentration in neurosciences. This way, you don't have to go into medicine.
 
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You are a pre-med student going into junior year who hasn't taken a biology course?
Also, neuroscience is a hard science and requires the same pre-med courses.
 
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Thanks for the responses guys! I left out a lot to keep it as short as possible and not tell my whole life story but let me explain a little more.

I have been thinking about going into medicine for years and have really wanted to be a doctor since I was a kid. How the body works and is affected by disease seems really fascinating, and I want to help people so medicine seemed perfect. But when I got to college I wasn’t so sure if it’s really my “calling” (if you believe in that sort of thing).

I really pulled away from medicine in the first place because the pre reqs didn’t appeal to me whereas psych/neuro/stats/research focused classes really did. I thought that that was better suited for me so I changed my direction. Then I started having doubts about that, and thought if I was going to go through tons of school might as well end up with a solid job (not that $/ job security is all I care about, but I think it’s important to be realistic and practical). So I went back to medicine and convinced myself that I was just nervous to take the pre reqs and this is really what I want to do, since I’ve wanted to do it since I was a kid.

My worries with the pre reqs are: if I don’t like these classes, will I really like medicine? I think it’s interesting now but I haven’t had enough exposure to med-school-like classes to make an informed decision. Plus, even if I really like neuroscience and psych, there’s a whole lot else to medicine that is cool, but I’m not as passionate about.

I guess my question is, is it stupid to base my career decision on what’s interesting now and what I’m best at in school?

I think I could be happy as a researcher or a doctor, but I’m not sure if my greater interest/ talent in classes that point me towards research is a sign that i would be better off there, or if that’s just silly.

Thanks again for responding :)

I was a psych major in undergrad and I was really into my major classes, and excelled in them.

The medical school pre-reqs were all awesome to me. Each with their own life changing epiphanies. Examples since I know you’ll ask— awe at seeing anaphase under the microscope (so many other microscope moments!), dreaming about being inside a golgi complex watching it’s automated assembly line arms pack and sort, learning the laws of thermodynamics, telomeres and aging, so many cool and interesting things!

However, it was more of an uphill battle with them performance wise than in my psych classes.

Don’t think about if you want to be a pre-med student; ask yourself if you want to be a doctor. Honestly I can’t tell from your posts if you’re running from neuroscience to medicine, or from medicine to neuroscience. At least get some more clinical experience/volunteering to figure out if you are inspired to be a doctor or not.
 
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I agree. I love learning about everything. Personally I find physics very difficult because we didn't learn much about it in primary school, but its so fascinating what you can do with it! I use basic trig/physics with my ballistic calculations for handloads, and can only imagine how helpful it would be to be truly proficient in it! And biochemistry when it comes to athletics and nutrition.

I don’t understand why people aren’t in awe of the world around them. It truly is astounding.
 
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I have actually shadowed a decent amount and at the time I thought it was great but thinking the way I am now I’m not so sure. I shadowed a neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist, endocrinologist, and psychiatrist. I thought all of it was great experience but I couldn’t really see myself doing any of it (except maybe psych, but I am a nosey person so maybe I just like it because I got to hear people talk about their personal lives :) ). When I was shadowing I thought that maybe these just aren’t the specialties for me but now I’m not sure if I should take that as medicine not being for me

I wouldn't base your interest in medicine off of your interest in pre-reqs. Organic chem and physics are nothing like medical school. Personally, I enjoyed most of the pre-reqs, but there were definitely some classes that I didn't enjoy!

I am more concerned about your lack of interest while shadowing. When I was in undergrad, I would shadow periodically in order to keep myself motivated to keep working hard and going through the pre-reqs. Since you enjoy neuroscience, I would try to shadowing a neurologist - maybe someone affiliated with a large academic center who does quite a bit of research. I know doctors who spend at least 2-3 days out of every week on research so it's definitely possible to have a career as both a physician and a researcher. You just need to figure out if the physician part is for you.
 
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Psych job market is a hot mess from my understanding.

My sister finished her PhD this June and had no shortage of job offers. n=1, but she had a lot to choose from, so there are definitely plenty of jobs (and she ultimately narrowed it down to two jobs on opposite sides of the country—so it’s not limited to location either apparently).
 
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My aunt and uncle are both PhD in pysch. They seemed to enjoy it, I'm just still shocked at their low wages. 65,000$ at retirement for being a university professor is unacceptable for me. Its a shame, I would enjoy it. I really enjoy teaching people (probably my favorite aspect of being a nurse).
 
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My aunt and uncle are both PhD in pysch. They seemed to enjoy it, I'm just still shocked at their low wages. 65,000$ at retirement for being a university professor is unacceptable for me. Its a shame, I would enjoy it. I really enjoy teaching people (probably my favorite aspect of being a nurse).
Painfully disgusting wage for the work endured in a PhD. I know a CS major that graduated with a 2.8 currently earning 90k. I would never recommend a PhD ever. Almost all PhD grads i talk to agree
 
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Painfully disgusting wage for the work endured in a PhD. I know a CS major that graduated with a 2.8 currently earning 90k. I would never recommend a PhD ever. Almost all PhD grads i talk to agree
They haven’t mentioned whether they’d recommend it or not, but I was astonished. Growing up my dad was an X-ray tech and my mom was disabled. My father made about 40k before he retired. When I was a kid we just always imagined that my uncle alone was bringing in like 95-100 minimum. He is a pretty prominent professor at his college. My aunt not so much, so we never thought she made a boat load. But my uncle is very respected in his field of Auditory Psychology.

I recently told him what I made my first year as a 2 year diplom nurse when he kind of hinted at it and I thought he was going to choke to death. “You make HOW MUCH?!”

And I told him “well I was working 5 13 hour shifts a week...” and he said “so...?! I work more than that when you factor in grading homework and attending conferences etc!”
 
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My sister finished her PhD this June and had no shortage of job offers. n=1, but she had a lot to choose from, so there are definitely plenty of jobs (and she ultimately narrowed it down to two jobs on opposite sides of the country—so it’s not limited to location either apparently).

Is your sister doing academics though or is she a practicing clinical psychologist? Academics is hot mess I was referring to.

Practicing clinical psych has an excellent job market - a close family friend cleared $400k this year owning his own psychology practice. And he’s hiring every new grad he can find.

Painfully disgusting wage for the work endured in a PhD. I know a CS major that graduated with a 2.8 currently earning 90k. I would never recommend a PhD ever. Almost all PhD grads i talk to agree

I would disagree - PhD can be a great degree if used in the right context. The people I know who did chemistry, math, or engineering PhDs are VERY well compensated (and happy with) their work. These are all people who went into the private/financial sector though.

Edit: to be clear the n=3 people I know who got non-STEM PhDs are absolutely miserable - so I totally agree with your statement in that context
 
Is your sister doing academics though or is she a practicing clinical psychologist? Academics is hot mess I was referring to.

Academics. She had multiple faculty jobs offered to her. But maybe she’s the exception. I dunno a lot about the psych job market. I just think if she got offered multiple positions, clearly there are some out there.
 
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Academics. She had multiple faculty jobs offered to her. But maybe she’s the exception. I dunno a lot about the psych job market. I just think if she got offered multiple positions, clearly there are some out there.
Yeah but being offered positions isn’t enough. After that time and debt, I better be making at least 80k.
 
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Why you think doing psych can only land you at academia?

The field of neuropsychology is a fine field with decent job market, and you get to see patients too. You can keep doing research as a PhD level neuropsychologist. If you work in medical center, perhaps you will be required to do so as part of your job duties. You can major in clinical psy with concentration in neurosciences. This way, you don't have to go into medicine.

Neuropsych sounds really interesting! I mentioned academia primarily because that’s what I was originally planning on doing, but I know there’s other avenues I can take. Thank you for the suggestion!
 
I agree. I love learning about everything. Personally I find physics very difficult because we didn't learn much about it in primary school, but its so fascinating what you can do with it! I use basic trig/physics with my ballistic calculations for handloads, and can only imagine how helpful it would be to be truly proficient in it! And biochemistry when it comes to athletics and nutrition.

I don’t understand why people aren’t in awe of the world around them. It truly is astounding.

I honestly agree for the most part, this world is amazing! My issue is, do I love these subjects enough to dedicate my whole life to learning about them, you know?
 
You are a pre-med student going into junior year who hasn't taken a biology course?
Also, neuroscience is a hard science and requires the same pre-med courses.

I’ve taken biology, but that’s about it as far as pre reqs (since I decided no med school I didn’t take the others then I decided again and all that, I ended up with a pre req gap)
I was just taking my major courses (which is biological psychology since pre med isn’t an official major at my school) which had a few neuroscience based courses and some more psychology based courses and those are the ones I really loved. Hope this clears it up
 
Do you want to work with patients or do research?
If you want to work with patients, then look into medicine. If you are concerned about hard sciences, look into clinical psych, social work, etc..
If you are interested in research, then a PhD it is (cognitive psych, experimental, etc). However, not in Neuroscience since that is heavily based in hard sciences (biology, chemistry, physics).
 
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OP, you don't sound like you'd like medicine. Your interests obviously is more in the psych/neuroscience realm. You don't get to choose what you learn in medical school. The first 2 years kinda suck and if you have no basic interest in pathology then you're gonna hate it. Anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology, pathophysiology, etc. Those have almost nothing to do with any of your interests. Not to mention residency where you have to deal with more than medicine on a daily basis. Save yourself the trouble and continue pursuing your interest at least you'll be happy. Having a good income is not going to make you enjoy life anymore than doing what you already like.
 
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Biology, chemistry, and physics are the foundations of both medicine and neuroscience. If you don't want to study those things, you are probably best in a different field. It may be time to do some reevaluating. I started college wanting to be an English teacher and graduated 6 years later with a degree in biochemistry. Its not too late to change paths and its better than being stuck in a career you don't want.
 
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Why do you even think you want to be a doctor? This is like me saying “oh I want to be an artist. But I hate painting, sculpting, photography, and music”
 
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Thanks for all the advice people!!!! You helped me decide to go into research, not sure what kind yet but ill figure it out along the way. Can't thank you all for your responses, have a beautiful day folks :)
 
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Why do you even think you want to be a doctor? This is like me saying “oh I want to be an artist. But I hate painting, sculpting, photography, and music”
Honestly, I think it's because I wanted to be a doctor since before I really knew what being a doctor was all about. I would watch tv shows like house and scrubs and be like "wow that's so cool, I want to do that!11!!!!1!" without really knowing anything about the field. I also knew there was a lot of s*** you have to weed through to becoming a doctor, but I always would just dismiss it and think something like "oh, I don't want to work 80hrs a week / take 24+ hr call / go into debt / etc but it'll be worth it to be a doctor!" then i started thinking that for the pre reqs and I'm like, wait, do I really want to be a doctor if i'm not interested in these classes??? Which is when I came here for the advice from the sdn family
 
Take the pre reqs and go to med school, hands down. I wanted to switch from engineering to premed in college but had a hard time accepting the fact it might delay my graduation another semster. I ended up dropping out of the pre req classes and finishing my engineering degree. Then 2 years later went back and did the pre reqs. 10 years later, now finishing residency. And to think I got so bent out of shape over a measley extra semester (only 3 months!) in college. What seemed like an eternity back then now goes by in the blink of an eye.
 
I was a psych major in college. I liked bio courses but thought chem and phys were boring. I did well in physics but struggled really with chem. I worked my tail off and got A+ in both org 1 and A in org 2. Just a few semesters before that I couldn’t explain what an ion was (I was definitely deficient).

I am in med school now, year three, and doing well in school and did well on the step exam. I’m saying, you don’t have to LOVE the pre-reqs to do well, and in fact you can succeed (although it might be an uphill battle) if you aren’t very good at them. It is no lie that a lot of medical school requires knowledge based on the pre-reqs. So if you can’t learn to love biochem or at least be good enough to understand it/ apply it, then it would be tough to go into this field.

TLDR - You can make it despite not being GREAT at prereqs. But you gotta like the pre-reqs enough to deal with them for the rest of your career at atleast a basic level if you want to be a doctor. You really just can’t understand drugs if you don’t understand biochem, for example.

My advice is to go into research if you can really picture your life going that route. I was on the fence about Psych PHD (research career) vs MD as well and I’m glad that I went this route, but you gotta decide for you what you really want out of your life. Good luck.
 
You can do all the research you want as an MD. There are plenty of straight MD physician-scientists.

For the love of god, don’t do a psych PhD.
 
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You can do all the research you want as an MD. There are plenty of straight MD physician-scientists.

For the love of god, don’t do a psych PhD.
This is what i came to realize too. I like research a little but I don't think I would ever just bank on it for a career. Go MD! PhDs are risky in 2018. Every person I know with a PhD or earning one tells me how horrible it is. The ones that dont say its bad have it made with good faculty research positions or industry positions that most people do not get
 
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This is what i came to realize too. I like research a little but I don't think I would ever just bank on it for a career. Go MD! PhDs are risky in 2018. Every person I know with a PhD or earning one tells me how horrible it is. The ones that dont say its bad have it made with good faculty research positions or industry positions that most people do not get

As a person with behavioral sciences my current profession (2/3 of my dissertation committee was psychologists, clinical and developmental psy), I don't know what you are talking about though. Do you really know what happens in Psy or related fields? I enjoy every moment of what I have been doing, and currently making decent money for what I do. The reason I am here stepping into medicine because I want to integrate biopsychosocial care for those patients I really care about. Do you know that American Psychological Association has 54 divisions and growing? Neuroscience is only a tiny part of the work psy people do. Yes, we all know that basic psy science is highly competitive and the job markets for those fields are not big enough (as they are research grant dependent). Yet, there are a lot of other fields, some of them are emerging new fields that need more people to do the work. An example includes that, a traditional basic psy field, social psy, now finds a new employment place: business schools, where social psy PhDs apply their knowledge to study how people like or dislike certain brands under different social conditions so that they could boost up the sales.... oh well.... In fact, there are people trying to merge neurosciences and social psy, I totally believe one day someone is going to use social/cultural neurosciences to study marketing (such as health related insurances) and employed in B-schools....
 
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No one likes the stupid prereqs just look at the bigger picture and get them out the way
 
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No one likes the stupid prereqs just look at the bigger picture and get them out the way
I’m a somebody *shrugs*

Even though some are going to be hard doesn’t mean I won’t like them.
 
No one likes the stupid prereqs just look at the bigger picture and get them out the way

This thread was me trying to look at the bigger picture in a sense. I’m not sure if it got lost within everyone’s replies but I mentioned that I was thinking even though I don’t like the pre reqs I’ll take them because it will be worth it to be a doctor, but that got me thinking, if I really am not interested in the foundational sciences of medicine, what makes me think I’ll like medicine? And that’s when I came here
 
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