Major Doesn't Matter for MD

[4ObamaCare]

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I know that Major does not virtually matter for MD, however for an undergrad major what would be more prestigious, fun, exciting, relevant in your opinion to today's scientific field?

Immunology & Pathogenesiss: Infectious Diseases

or

Neurobiology

Would appreciate your thoughts.

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

Lets say it would be impossible for you to attend medical school. Would you rather work in infectious disease research or neurobiology research? Because honestly, they're the same freaking thing. Way more important for you to enjoy & speak passionately about what you're learning.

 

[Oso]

Prestigious to who? No one cares..

Fun - depends on what you find fun

Exciting - depends on what you find exciting

Relevant to today's scientific field -- they are both extremely relevant



Do what you enjoy and find most interesting.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Personally I’d do immunology but I’m kinda partial

 

[4ObamaCare]

Personally I’d do immunology but I’m kinda partial

I'm feeling the same way! thanks for your response to my question.

 

[4ObamaCare]

Prestigious to who? No one cares..

Fun - depends on what you find fun

Exciting - depends on what you find exciting

Relevant to today's scientific field -- they are both extremely relevant



Do what you enjoy and find most interesting.

Thanks for your realistic response.

Ugh it's hard to choose, especially when you are unfamiliar with who is teaching which can make a big difference. Can I just do both requirements in both emphases and just chose one. At the end its the transcript that matters for both grad and medical school.

 

[Oso]

Thanks for your realistic response.

Ugh it's hard to choose, especially when you are unfamiliar with who is teaching which can make a big difference. Can I just do both requirements in both emphases and just chose one. At the end its the transcript that matters for both grad and medical school.

Do you have to decide right now? Could you take a class or two in each major and see what you like best? Not sure what you mean by doing both requirements, you mean a double major?Regardless of what you choose, a lot of your time will be spent doing pre-med prerequisites (chem, orgo, bio, etc.).

 

[seekere]

Honestly do the major with the easiest requirements and then maybe take a few of these extra courses senior year when you've applied. When you have a 3.54 because you chose some weird infectious disease major that has strange upper level requirements, you'll be sorry you didn't chose psych and rock a 3.75.

 

[Lucca]

My honest (totally personal, very biased) advice beyond “it doesn’t really matter” is this: if you want to be a scientist or think you want to be one then study Chemistry, Physics or Maths (you can learn biology from a textbook). If you don’t want to be a scientist, study the humanities and do the pre-reqs — the classes tend to be way more fun, you learn to read critically and write well which will make your life easier in the future, and you can take the time to study a subject you will never get the chance to seriously study in the same way again after undergrad; also, they tend to be easier on the GPA.

 

[getdown]

You should choose a backup career should you not get into medicine. Econ and business are two very good majors to have under your belt in today's job market. The PhD route is becoming more and more arduous with barely any pay and hard to break into industry. But every job in the world will appreciate a business or econ degree.

 

[Goro]

You should choose a backup career should you not get into medicine. Econ and business are two very good majors to have under your belt in today's job market. The PhD route is becoming more and more arduous with barely any pay and hard to break into industry. But every job in the world will appreciate a business or econ degree.

Good lab techs are always hard to find! They always end up wanting to go to grad or med school!

 

[trobinsonmd]

I started off as a biochem major, thinking I had to be a bio major to get into MD school... ended up switching to public health and it was the best decision ever. As someone previously said, it's nice to have a major that can land you a job if med school doesn't work out, you can work in the county health department, go into epidemiology, or work in hospital admin with a public health degree... if med school does work out, you know a lot about public health and preventative health/disease epidemiology that I feel is relatively useful... it's nice to know about the system that you're ultimately going to be practicing in and what you're going to be getting into... from the perspective of a medical school applicant, not many students can say that they know much about the system... in my interviews I was able to talk about the healthcare system very in-depth (some of the MMI questions ask about health care issues and public health issues), and I think that was another advantage of being a ph major