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keyword: reputable
As in if you just want a master in chem or bio, period, a health science degree will work just fine.
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Infamous "pre med major"
Started by Chemistry>Physics
keyword: reputable
As in if you just want a master in chem or bio, period, a health science degree will work just fine.
And then you'll have a largely worthless Master's degree to pair with your largely worthless Health Sciences degree.
i mean, i guess.. but my point was that the degree does not ban you from anything or decrease your chances, especially medicine (since we are in the pre-med forum and thats where most of us want to end)
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But my point is, you should have the most solid backup plan possible. Because half of the premeds in this thread and reading it will never, ever become doctors. They should plan accordingly.
When I took my first bio in college, I went for this whole understand biology instead of memorizing. I ended up failing the exams. The majority of professors design their test in such way that only memorization helps.
you just like going in circles, dont you? now were going to go back to the part where I say 'how much more solid is a degree in bio than health sciences?'
In all honesty, if youre pulling the argument of most solid back up plans, we should be telling all the pre-meds in here to get something like a BS in Nursing , instead youre arguing for equally pointless degrees like bio and chem.
Bio and chem have far more utility than a degree in health sciences, as I've stated before. Chemistry and Bio majors both have unemployment rates of <6%. A general health science major prepares you for nothing- if I were an employer in education, research, or tech, I'd take a hard science major over a soft HS major any day of the week. Unfortunately, we don't have good data on non-nursing/RT/health care professional HS majors, because they are so rare due to the relative uselessness of the degree compared to the alternatives.
okay cool story bro.
Health Sci majors can EASILY get jobs working in hospital adminsitration, hospice, health promotion programs, CDC, NIH, et cetera. Or even teaching Health Sci, epidemiology, and the list goes on.
Biology majors can be teachers/do research....
I really don't know why you are so anti Health Science, frankly, I'd love to know what your opinion on a Dance Major or Literature major would be.
Biology majors can be teachers/do research....
I really don't know why you are so anti Health Science, frankly, I'd love to know what your opinion on a Dance Major or Literature major would be.
mmmcdowe
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Please do not put words in my mouth. I never once suggested that you shouldn't chose a major because of chances of getting into medical school, nor did I say that doing health science worsens your chances on an individual level of getting into medical school, I simply gave the facts available that yes, per your sarcastic remark, health science majors do tilt the curve more to rejection than any other category of majors. I was never going after health sciences majors.
I fully support doing a major that interests you regardles of whether or not it is the best major to go to or get into medical school with. All I said is that "pre-med" major has disadvantages due to the fact that most pre-med majors, which are a subcatagory of health science majors, do not go to medical school. If you are interested in health admin, public health, etc them by all means do a health sciences major, but to major in pre-med is not advisable when there are many other majors with flexible curricula that also provide access to in depth courses as well as fulfill the requirements easily. I do not accept doing pre-med major just because then you know all of the requirements are filled (because it isn't necessarily true of all schools requirements anyways). The people putting together that curricula are the same people you can access through pre-health advising. I had no problem figuring out how to fulfill the requirements.
I was a dance major, rock on do what you enjoy. There are more things to get out of college than getting into medical school (which is why you people should explore something other than pre-med).
I am not anti any major. I happen to like public health/global health/epidemiology. I want to go into ID, so naturally HealthSci was more realistic. I was more annoyed people likened my major to going to Caribbean med schools than anything. I do plenty of things outside of pre-med but obviously I am going to defend my decisions when someone downplays a degree I worked for.
Dance is cool, I'm not good at it. I like literature. Would've loved a Criminal Justice major. But HealthSci was the best choice for me.
mmmcdowe
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to emphasize, my issue is with pre med not health science majors, which falls under tthe category of a health science major but is distinct in the vocational narrowness of its focus.
Do keep in mind that Specialized Health Sciences in that AAMC table includes nurses and allied health professionals who majored in their clinical area of study (med technology, nursing, dietetics, respiratory therapy, etc) and who then did a post-bac to prepare for admission to medical school. Those health sciences majors are not facing high rates of unemployment.
I doubt that an undergrad degree in health science/pre-professional is any different in terms of alternate career paths than a major in biology or sociology with the pre-med requirements.
Most of the life science majors at my school are being completed by pre meds, but they all have names (mine is physiology; others are micro and molecular biology, exercise science, etc.)
I have heard that others schools have literal B.S. In premedical studies. I don't think it's particularly common, and I think that's a good thing.
I have heard that others schools have literal B.S. In premedical studies. I don't think it's particularly common, and I think that's a good thing.
I could be wrong but I think that physiology, microbiology, molecular biology, exercise science would all be categorized by AAMC as biological science. There are degree programs in "pre-professional studies" that basically cover the required courses for med school plus gen ed as well as those other vocational programs in speech pathology, nursing, etc that would be categorized as "specialized health sciences"
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Actually some health sciences fields are more rigorous than biology and immitate mini-med school. Also FYI, many don't come from economically stable families so they think about working before med school which is what everyone should do but in this world of debt do kids even care? I have classmates that have high gpa, and those with 3.5 and near. Yea others don't care because they are going to get a job from the outset but what would you expect? One or two kids from the program know from the outset that they want to go to med school. These kids have stellar gpas. They go into top med schools after working and come back telling how they practically are teaching the class because they already have gone the rough route. I'm sorry but I think these certain rigorous majors in top unis under health science should be recognized and we shouldn't stereotype these kids as lower stat. If anything, they're not cut any slack for a lower gpa just because they have an experience; I know the cycle doesn't end well for them. I don't know what the difference btw humanities ppl who go to peace corps is vs. those that take premed courses alongside health sciences and actually go into healthcare understanding its humbleness.
I might be barely scraping B's in neurobiology but at least I'm challenging myself!
...that's what I like to tell myself for motivation
What in world are you talking about.....OMG TROLL. I had almost straight As in chemistry....got selected for a rigorous program and am now working an internship as health care professional that has me working 24 hours a week. I worked my *** off in this health major and my chemistry program is actually ranked right up with Harvard...........
My exams are accuracy based...so if my practical performance is completed with complete explanation but my results weren't as expected...guess what? I get a big fat *. When kids see my textbooks, they are like "you must be hard core science major". My response "eff it, no one even knows or appreciates except me". I'm sorry for this message but for the amount of work I do for this major and then have people come to my face and post useless statistics after saying "majors are unimportant", just kind of throws off the entire gimmick med school plays. I also have credibility too because my program is one of the top ones up there and not from Podunk University but part of a med school that people are pitting themselves to get into. It also seems to me that you don't know much about the health sciences programs to begin with. I can only speak about my particular health related field but let me tell you that the professors that taught me have invented things that have them hopping country to country. They are legendary and are even responsible for teaching medical students. Yes my chemistry professors were legendary too but at the end of the day I was getting a degree I would never use and that to me is stupid because I already had more than enough chemistry I needed. Post-baccalaureate students in our program are people that have had either chemistry/biology degree and they don't want anything to do with med school. Our program has not helped raise my cum gpa. I had a much higher gpa (next to phi beta kappa) with my chemistry track. I went to a field that challenged me and I don't want to have to go through the brutality of it again so I'm preparing for med school through this stint. Yes med school is 10x as hard but atleast I'm not taking the easy way out that suits my personality. Have some humbleness and shame while you are ranting like a bird gone awry.
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I was referencing Health Science Studies majors and the like (general degrees that give you a very superficial background in the sciences and in health care concepts without any singular focus), not allied health profession majors, or those with niche health science degrees (lab technology and the like). Those have value and plenty of utility.
Just making sure cause people are categorizing specialized professions under the larger flagship of Health sciences, which AMCAS does. Our uni doesn't have a general health science major and quite frankly I'd equate it to management with a lot of dealing with public health stuff.
I thought I was pretty clearly referring to general degrees in health science studies. Actual degrees in the health sciences (nursing, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, etc) are certainly worthwhile, and provide excellent fallback careers with decent income prospects, but people should also be careful, as they tend to be GPA killers.
Well there are other health sciences majors that are not considered alternatives and are more geared to pre-medicine than they are to specializing in a field where they directly work with a doctor or have the option of opening a clinic. It would be important to input that it is also harder to explain why exactly you would go do RN/resp/PT if your goal was to become a doctor. Other than that I suspect that general health science degrees are like public health degrees where everyone makes the dean's list. That's nothing different from other easy majors, so why be so critical. I think this lot also doesn't make up on the MCAT maybe because many ARE confused about where they stand. They have backups, so it isn't as important I guess.
The fact is that this population of applicants has the lowest averages of any of the majors. We aren't stereotyping, we are stating a fact based on the data. If there are outliers that have excellent academic records and excellent MCATs, they will rise like cream to to top and be skimmed into med school.
Why do health sciences majors have lower GPA and lower MCATs? Without mounds of data we aren't privy to and some multiple regression analysis we really can't know but there are plenty of hypotheses.
Keep in mind, too, that there are people who prepare for a career as an allied health professional or as a nurse and then after 4-5-6 years of practice they decide that maybe medicine is their calling and they do some post-bac classes to fill in the gaps in their transcript and off they go to med school, if they get in. Some of these applicants may not have believed that medicine was possible because they were in one way or another under-represented in medicine and thought that only allied health fields were a good fit until they learned more about medicine and how doors are open now that were closed in years past.
I always assumed that the purpose of the formal "pre-med" degree was to allow pre-med students who weren't interested in a biology or chemistry major to fulfill the requirements for a major without being forced to take science courses they weren't interested in, thus freeing up more credits for other areas of interest. By having the 50+ credits that you need to take to fulfill a pre-med requirement double as a major, you then have the rest of your credits available to broaden your horizons and thus have a college experience comparable to that of most other students.
I think it's a great benefit to pre-meds who are not bio or chem majors, but I agree that it doesn't look very impressive on paper.
I think it's a great benefit to pre-meds who are not bio or chem majors, but I agree that it doesn't look very impressive on paper.
Yea the cream of the crop would float to the top no matter what major. However, my concern is, how would you compare a kid with a biology degree having 3.5 gpa and another who majored in a health related profession (3.5 gpa too) with both having the same mcat (33) for hypothetical reasoning.
My concern lies with a remark made a recent medical panel conference where one of the facilitators straight up put health professions at a negative light. The person was not informed and in fact assumed that all took dumbed down science courses...when in reality there are schools where courses are the same with the same professors as physical sciences. However, it was more than ok for a kid in humanities to not have that bias put in. I don't know why health professions don't perform well in the cycle (primarily mcat) but maybe we get grouped in with other majors under this one big umbrella that none of us recognize which is the more academically driven degree. The statistics wouldn't be that reliable either if they split it up due to the issue of smaller groups of applicant sample sizes if we did that approach.
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+10 for this. At my undergrad we were basically told that we would be stupid not to double major if we were pre-med. There was literally a 2 class difference between pre-med and bio and we had a lot of people who also majored in psych or philosophy.
Also, as someone who graduated pre-med and wasn't immediately accepted, my pre-med degree was pretty useless in the job market for anything other than tutoring and lab assistant jobs that paid ~10/hr.
While it is often said that major doesnt matter, and for the most part it does not, to major in a vocational field such as nutrition or medical technology is to be considered to have taken a less rigorous course of study than someone who majored in biophysics or bioengineering.
Hahaha that's the spirit I like it
that sounds toolish.And at the other extreme, there are med students who classify themselves as "non-students"😉
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That's precisely why it's looked down upon though- you're often sacrificing higher-level bio, chem, and physics courses for superficial knowledge elsewhere, and thus have a more shallow curriculum overall.
But you're going to skip the higher level bio, chem and physics classes if you major in history or English or music, and those majors have a slghtly higher acceptance rate to med school, and have for at least 40 years, so skipping the extra sciences is not penalized by med schools. Indeed, it seems to be valued. If your point is that "pre-med" majors won't have an in-depth study of any particular field, I agree, although that may not be such a bad thing.
If it's looked down upon, ( and I don't know that it really is ) it's probably becaues it's lumped in with a "Health Sciences" major, assumed to be a pre-nursing type major with watered down science courses.
The advantage to a student would be if they had several areas of concentration in mind outside the sciences. For example, they wanted to prepare for a career in medicine by taking several business classes, and a lot of higher level programming classes, and some ethics classes, but they didn't want to take the extra classes those fields would require to get a major, just as they don't want to take the extra bio classes needed for a bio major. In the big scheme of things, having to take an extra two or three bio classes to get a bio major isn't a big deal, I suppose, but I was a history major, so I can sympathize with the urge to avoid the extra sciences. Now, if I were doing it over, I would have prepared more for medical school by taking more bio classes, and in the process I would have gotten my bio major, but I wanted to take non-science classes while I could. The outcome is that while I remember pretty much nothing of organic chemistry, I remember lots about history and other humanities, so it worked out well for me in the long run.
Again, I would recommend strongly against a "pre-med" major, but I appreciate the motivation for offfering it, and for taking it.
This is precisely what is wrong with admissions. Yes when comparing biophysics and bioengineering, most majors won't compare. However, some rigorous and more academically leaning health science majors go so much in depth that they leave their counterpart biology majors miles ahead. I could read a book and do a 1 day/week lab any day of the week and not be overwhelmed as I am with my 4 hour labs that I do every day. What a bio major might actually be doing in a research lab after graduation is what we might be doing IN our school. I think adcoms make too much generalizations when most don't really come from such an education background. Additionally our first 2 years are the same as any chem or bio major since our prereqs are the same if you look at course history and it doesn't say "math for biology majors" or something.
I still don't understand why public health or humanities have better acceptance than us or atleast that we are thought of as less rigorous.
Without knowing your major it is hard to comment. Public Health isn't a category on that AAMC table, it might be lumped under Health Science. It isn't that the pre-reqs aren't the same but that the rest of the coursework doesn't seem rigorous. Taking p-chem as a third year chem major vs taking" food and nutrition education" as a third year dietetics major -- thats the sort of comparison of schedules/transcripts that makes some adcoms think that the chem major has a more rigorous course of study than the dietetics major.
Humanities majors are a different situation. Philosophy and history majors bring an interesting perspective and are very rare in the pool. Performing arts majors are rare and are often non-traditional applicants in my experience -- some have been professional musicians or performers before doing a post-bac. Again, they bring something different to the table. Note too, that Biology majors outnumber humanities majors more than 10 to 1 among matriculants but are pretty much similar in their performance on the MCAT and GPA. https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/factstable18.pdf
Ahh, I get that example with the courses. No, I haven't taken any just courses like "Food and nutrition", I would assume it superficially not as rigorous. An example of my course selection would be such (without giving away too much of my tiny major and uni) "hematopathology".
Hah! So my degree in Human Resources Management must seem like the total cakewalk that it was. I mean, I had to learn a lot of regulations and business practices, but it was not nearly as rigorous as the independent study that I've done in 20th century Chinese history or any of my other hobby interests.
The degree program included professional certification exams in project management and human resources management, so if I flunk out of med school and don't want to continue as a nurse, I have the option to be one kind of office functionary or another. Yeah. The fear of ever actually having to work in HR will likely motivate me to study as if my sanity depended upon it.
wow so math and physical sciences dominate the MCAT on average. I wonder why this is ? I could see chem really helping because it spans PS and the orgo section of BS but I'm curious about math. Maybe math instills a more logical thinking pattern (proofs) than some others?
Engineering would be categorized specifically by type I'm guessing? (bioengineering=bio sciences, electrical eng.=physical sciences)
