med students need advice. how to prepare for medical school after acceptance?

[nonsciencemajor]

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I know a lot of students will say that after having been accepted to med school to enjoy life before med school starts... but I dont really want that advice anymore....

I am a nonscience major in undergrad having taken only a year of general bio, chem, orgo, and physics. Got accepted to med school, so excited about that. But I want to take some courses to prep me for med school.

Is cell bio worth taking? I know cell bio is a course in med school, but will this undergrad cell bio course lab also cover histology??

is biochem in undergrad worth taking? I have heard that undergrad biochem focuses on different things as compared to med school biochem. Is it better to just study Lippincott biochem rather than studying for an undergrad biochem class?

My school offers a year of human anatomy and physiology. Obviously I dont have a year, but my school also offers like an human anatomy and physiology course that runs one semester. Obviously it is scaled down from the year long course, but is it worth taking this class? Or should i do a course my undergrad offers which is like an 400 level human physiology course, and not worry about anatomy?

also is it worth taking pathophysiology undergrad course?


all these courses that i plan to take I WILL NOT register for but rather sit in the class, and study from the textbooks

 

[PremedIowa]

Anatomy is critical. Many of my classmates and I were advised not to take anatomy during college and we suffered through it as a result. Anatomy is far and away the hardest subject we have taken so far. The pathophys course will probably be more interesting but I bet med school pathophys will be so totally different than undergrad it will not help you at all.

 

[kingofthehill]

all these courses that i plan to take I WILL NOT register for but rather sit in the class, and study from the textbooks

This is just silly, if you're going to take any class at all, you should just take it for real and get credit with it.

The reason you always get the same answer from med students on this question is because there really isn't much that you can do at this point to further prepare yourself academically. Some of my classmates and I took anatomy and biochemistry in college, and we all agree that it ended up not really giving us an advantage over those kids who did not take these courses. For one thing, you're going to forget a lot of it--especially if you're not forced to study it for tests, as you plan on doing! And another, what you learn in college is taught in a different context. Taking anatomy in biochem in med school is clinically focused, which makes it a whole lot different from the college versions of the courses.

If you really are intent on studying before med school, you might as well just buy a review book that med students use for their studies and just peruse that. But again, I think that would be such a waste of your precious time. Enjoy it while you still have it!

 

[WellWornLad]

Having a non-science major doesn't change a thing. Nothing you learn in med school is all that complicated or concept-laden. It's just memorization.

Whether or not you want to hear it, you are wasting your time attending courses beforehand. A few months of class in undergrad might save you a handful of hours of studying in med school. At that exchange rate, you're getting ripped off and will regret it later.

 

[eforest]

After you're accepted, just relax (even though I know it's hard to do!). I studied the summer before medical school and it didn't really help. The classes you take as an undergraduate are usually different from those you take in medical school- in medical school you usually learn some things in more depth, you gloss over other things- and it's really hard to predict what precisely you need to study in order to make first year more bearable.

 

[unsung]

I know a lot of students will say that after having been accepted to med school to enjoy life before med school starts... but I dont really want that advice anymore....

I am a nonscience major in undergrad having taken only a year of general bio, chem, orgo, and physics. Got accepted to med school, so excited about that. But I want to take some courses to prep me for med school.

Is cell bio worth taking? I know cell bio is a course in med school, but will this undergrad cell bio course lab also cover histology??

is biochem in undergrad worth taking? I have heard that undergrad biochem focuses on different things as compared to med school biochem. Is it better to just study Lippincott biochem rather than studying for an undergrad biochem class?

My school offers a year of human anatomy and physiology. Obviously I dont have a year, but my school also offers like an human anatomy and physiology course that runs one semester. Obviously it is scaled down from the year long course, but is it worth taking this class? Or should i do a course my undergrad offers which is like an 400 level human physiology course, and not worry about anatomy?

also is it worth taking pathophysiology undergrad course?


all these courses that i plan to take I WILL NOT register for but rather sit in the class, and study from the textbooks

Anatomy IS hard (and the hardest course for me... everything was uphill from that class). But, I don't think there's a good way to prepare for it. It might be a good class for you that you are good at and enjoy a lot... who knows. Since it's more or less raw memorization, I didn't really feel I would've benefited from any kind of extra science background for that class beforehand.

What I wish I had a stronger background in is molecular bio. There's so much "blah blah blah bind blah blah blah receptor", "phosphorylate this, phosphorylate that", "actin polymerization"... I couldn't help but feel that the "real" molecular bio majors had a marked advantage in that situation because for them, the lingo actually "means" something presumably. For me, I was just memorizing a bunch of names with only a surface lvl understanding. As we all know, learning with understanding makes material stick far more, in terms of long-term memory. So I really felt disadvantaged there.

Another class is genetics. There's just a lot of lingo, terminology, and concepts there that oftentimes, med school expects you to have magically covered already.

And if you really want to torture yourself, I'd suggest biochem, as well.

 

[unsung]

Having a non-science major doesn't change a thing. Nothing you learn in med school is all that complicated or concept-laden. It's just memorization.

Whether or not you want to hear it, you are wasting your time attending courses beforehand. A few months of class in undergrad might save you a handful of hours of studying in med school. At that exchange rate, you're getting ripped off and will regret it later.

Ahh, this ime, is untrue. Being a non-science major IS a disadvantage!

What IS true is that it is all memorization. And like you said, nothing that we learn is all that concept-laden. But a biochem major looking at the same material as me will "get more" out of the material. For me, it's just a bunch of random names. The biochem major may actually be able to picture the structures in his/her mind. The biochem major will know w/o being told that "synthetase" is an enzyme that requires ATP whereas "synthase" doesn't, and other vital little bits of info like it.

Med school can be pure memorization or slightly less pure (which translates into more understanding, imo). Being a science major definitely helps tilt the scale toward more understanding.

Too bad I wasn't really a hard-core bio science major!

 

[Nikki2002]

You might be close to meeting the requirements for a minor. I ended up graduating with 2 minors without much effort. I guess some biochem and anatomy wouldn't hurt you--but i'm not sure all the effort is worth it at this point. you'll just as easily learn the material in med school. it's all about memorization anyway. there is seriously nothing else you would rather do for the next semester?

 

[J ROD]

relax and enjoy the best part of med school...getting in....then the hell starts!!

 

[7starmantis]

😕

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=682691

 

[WellWornLad]

The biochem major may actually be able to picture the structures in his/her mind. The biochem major will know w/o being told that "synthetase" is an enzyme that requires ATP whereas "synthase" doesn't, and other vital little bits of info like it.

Each of those points should have been covered in undergrad orgo and bio, respectively. That's where I learned them, anyway. I'm a non-science major.

So yeah, the pre-reqs are important, but majoring in the subject won't help you. Even the pre-reqs are overkill. Med school biochem won't have you pushing electrons or drawing chemical structures. You're memorizing long lists of basic enzymatic reactions ad nauseum. There's nothing "deeper" about it.

 

[GoSpursGo]

How would you know if you didn't major/didn't take the undergrad classes? You're just speculating.

I can honestly say that if you were a science major, you had maybe a 2 week advantage on people who weren't once med school starts. They blow past the stuff that might've been covered in undergrad so fast, there's really only a nominal advantage to having been a science major. By September or October, everyone's seeing new material. I wouldn't waste my last semester of undergrad trying to get a nominal head start; it seems like taking the 2 weeks at the start of med school to learn it would be more efficient than taking a whole semester's worth of classes that's riddled with extraneous, non-medical information.

Honestly, there's a reason everyone says to relax once you get accepted. Med school is so fast-paced that it's easy enough to get burned out as it is. Having a little buffer time before the marathon starts is good. You CANNOT neglect your mental health; it's every bit as much a key to your success as knowing anatomy, physiology, signaling pathways and everything else they're going to ram into your skull over the next 4 years 🙂

 

[Perrotfish]

How would you know if you didn't major/didn't take the undergrad classes? You're just speculating. Perhaps someone who has taken the undergrad classes would be more of an authority than you.

Because you know your classmates and you see, based on that large sample size, that no one is doing better in the subjects they studied in undergrad than in the subjects they've never seen before. The Bio majors aren't rocking cell bio, the chem majors aren't killing biochem, etc. It is possible to recognize a trend without being one of the data points. I never needed to touch a hot stove to realize it would burn me.

From personal experience I was a Chem major and I had taken undergrad biochem and done fairly well, so theoretically biochem was the one I should have been prepared for. In reality felt like Biochem was one of my worst subjects. Prestudying doesn't work.

 

[Tired Pigeon]

Studied a lot the summer before med school, but looking back on it I don't think it conferred any substantive advantage.

 

[Noirukiddingme]

How would you know if you didn't major/didn't take the undergrad classes? You're just speculating. Perhaps someone who has taken the undergrad classes would be more of an authority than you.

I have to say that I feel like being a bio major (and focusing a lot of my undergrad on med school-like material) has helped me a great deal... There are two parts to this though...

1. It depends what you got out of your undergrad material. I was a pretty neurotic premed, so i knew things forwards and backwards, and not memorized, but understood pathways, etc. Med school is different. See below.

2. Non-science majors can easily (and I don't mean easily like it's easy, I mean easily like it's not uncommon) do just as well/better than those that major-ed in science subjects.

Below:

Med school is more like taking a superficial brushstroke at everything. For example, if you took undergrad biochem and had to know (for an open ended essay exam) the mechanism for chymotrypsin action, (at least for me) it included the structure of the active site residues and they're exact movement of electrons and atoms. In med school, it's more like, which are the key residues and what are the key parts to the process. So, it's not difficult for a non-science major to learn this stuff for the first time. Personally, I learned a lot of the details in undergrad, but only remember the concepts (vaguely🙄), which worked out nicely because that's all we need to know in med school. The difference is volume. We spent days on that chymotrypsin thing in undergrad, that was done in half a lecture in med school.

I also want to add that you should focus on relaxing from here on out. It's not worth taking one course in you're final semester to try to "get ahead," if that's what you're trying to do.

 

[MiSfiT2013]

Because you know your classmates and you see, based on that large sample size, that no one is doing better in the subjects they studied in undergrad than in the subjects they've never seen before. The Bio majors aren't rocking cell bio, the chem majors aren't killing biochem, etc. It is possible to recognize a trend without being one of the data points. I never needed to touch a hot stove to realize it would burn me.

From personal experience I was a Chem major and I had taken undergrad biochem and done fairly well, so theoretically biochem was the one I should have been prepared for. In reality felt like Biochem was one of my worst subjects. Prestudying doesn't work.

This. I was a biochem major in college and biochem is currently my lowest grade. I never took anatomy and it's currently my highest grade. While it might help to be familiar with a subject, I really don't think non-science majors are at a huge disadvantage.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I strongly agree with you on this...I guess I have a hard time believing that these undergrad classes are soooo stress-inducing and worthless as to be avoided.

I'm just saying they're essentially worthless. Yes, you can do it, but if you've been going non-stop for 3.5 years and you're about to go even harder for the next 4 years and beyond, it might be nice to take just an easy semester. Why keep working hard for an essentially negligible advantage.

 

[FloatOn]

😕

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=682691

Hey yeahhhh I already replied to the OP's original post. I'm confused.

 

[WellWornLad]

How would you know if you didn't major/didn't take the undergrad classes? You're just speculating. Perhaps someone who has taken the undergrad classes would be more of an authority than you.

Wow, that's some attitude you've got. Reminds me of why I avoid this forum.

I did minor in physics and took advanced orgo classes, including a class I thought would be useful for med school - the organic chemistry of pharmaceuticals. Turns out introductory orgo is more than you need to know for med school.

I've taken the classes in med school, and I've got a fair idea of what advanced undergrad science courses consist of. And as someone else has mentioned, there's enough science majors in med school that the difference would be apparent, if it existed. I'm not "speculating" at all.

 

[WellWornLad]

It's not an attitude, it's just common sense.

Until you can tell the difference between your personal opinion and common sense, I suggest you keep them both to yourself.

And as several people who HAVE taken these courses have said, it has helped them a great deal in med school.

If you actually read the thread I think you'll see that most of the science majors here, such as Perrotfish, MiSfiT2013, and GoSpursGo, agree with me.

Further, A&P and pathophysiology are not typical "advanced biology" courses. You'll meet many a bio major who never took those. We're talking about majoring in science, not going to med school before you go to med school.

 

[rockaction]

Who knows what you're babbling about. The OP asked SPECIFICALLY about about cell bio, biochemistry, human a&p, and pathophysiology, so unless you took those courses specifically, it's best to leave it to the people that have.

His point, if I'm reading his posts correctly, is that there is hardly any overlap between undergrad bio classes (be them A&P, pathophys, cell, etc) and what you learn in med school. Friends of mine who were bio majors that took an A&P class as well as a good deal of molecular classes have all told me that the familiar territory is blown through in about a week. It would be really obvious that it helped if all the bio majors rocked molecular/cell/biochem in med school but apparently the deal is that no major is favored.

Drop the attitude, man. The med students that come to post in the pre-medical forums are doing us a great service by answering our questions, so don't bite the hand that feeds you.

 

[WellWornLad]

Who knows what you're babbling about. The OP asked SPECIFICALLY about about cell bio, biochemistry, human a&p, and pathophysiology, so unless you took those courses specifically, it's best to leave it to the people that have.

The OP suggested that the reason he/she needed to take those courses was because he/she was a non-science major. I'd argue that on a forum those presenting advice or perspective have more of a right to be here than you, who seem only interested in praising those with whom you agree and discrediting those you don't.

I'm guessing you're a science major and are just pissed off that it won't give you some huge advantage if you get into med school. Tough luck.

 

[GoSpursGo]

His point, if I'm reading his posts correctly, is that there is hardly any overlap between undergrad bio classes (be them A&P, pathophys, cell, etc) and what you learn in med school. Friends of mine who were bio majors that took an A&P class as well as a good deal of molecular classes have all told me that the familiar territory is blown through in about a week. It would be really obvious that it helped if all the bio majors rocked molecular/cell/biochem in med school but apparently the deal is that no major is favored.

This. Furthermore, the focus of what you see in medical school is different than what you'll spend time on in undergrad; while an undergrad biochem class requires you to know all of the steps in all of the pathways and even the mechanisms to certain reactions (electron pushing and all that), those little minutiae are fairly worthless from a medical perspective, hence why you blow through the stuff you know really quickly. Will it give you a slight head start? Sure. But not really a big enough one that I'd bother taking them if I didn't already have to for my major. YMMV.

Let's please try and keep this conversation civil and stay away from personal attacks. There's no need to go at each other personally to have a rational discussion.

 

[GoSpursGo]

For the record, to clarify, I only had Biochem of the classes that the OP specifically asked about. However, for example, I have someone in my anatomy tank who took and then even TA'd for an undergrad anatomy class who says that things were covered at such a superficial level that she feels it really gave her hardly any advantage--and this is at a med school where I feel anatomy is somewhat understressed (we only have 2 hours of anatomy per week, August through February). We had a handful of cell bio classes in the first 2-3 weeks and were done with it.

So again, I'm not trying to say that it'll give you absolutely no advantage... but it gives you a marginal advantage at best, and if you don't have to take the classes or they can't be used to fulfill some graduation requirement, I'm not sure I'd bend over backwards to make sure you take it. But again, YMMV.

 

[Law2Doc]

My own experience: (1) there was no real advantage of having taking science courses prior to med school. As noted above, any advantage was very limited to things like biochem, and even then, the entire year of undergrad science was covered in about 10 days in med school so any advantage was so short lived as to be a waste of time. (2) there was no real advantage to having been a sci major. There were proportionately the same number of bio majors at the bottom of the class as the top, and the same held true for non-sci majors. In fact, the handful of people I know who failed courses and were asked to repeat first year were all science majors. (3) Med school teaches you all you need to know and then some. There is no real advantage reading ahead. You don't really know how to prepare for a med school course until you start one, and so most of your effort, although well intentioned, is going to be wasted effort. (4) the single, most useful thing you can do before med school is to show up rested and ready to hit the ground running. Whatever you can do to show up refreshed, and excited to get to work, the better off you are. Burning out is a real issue when you realize how many hours you are going to log in the library once school starts, so you aren't doing yourself any favors in most cases trying to get a leg up. (5) If the med school offers a summer "intro" month, some people have reported this to be of value. Not necessary, IMHO, but at least a med school offering will give you the kind of med school level focus that no undergrad program would.

Good luck all.

 

[WellWornLad]

I don't know why you have such a hard time understanding that the OP was very specific in the questions he wanted answers to, and you just keep answering questions he didn't ask.

What I say here is relevant to the OP's post. It may even be helpful, I'll leave it to the OP to decide. I'm not sure why you've nominated yourself as protector of the OP. Indeed, I'm unsure how someone with nothing to add to the subject can have the nerve to wax indignant about the scope of the thread. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[coldweatherblue]

devil's advocate: my humanities major gave me a huge advantage over science majors. why, you ask? cause while they're all freakin out about some 120 question exam, I'm chillin with music in my head, flipping through the Mozart discography I have filed away up there, picking out what music I wanna listen to in my head to relax myself while I kill the exam. Also art and music give you an abstract unconditional love for all life, which is like important in medicine or something. <----- I don't really think this is either an advantage or disadvantage, just goes to show you can argue anything.

Truth = The studying you did before med school matters much much less than the studying you will do in med school. So any of these discussions are really pointless. The best thing you can do is build good work ethic and arrive ready to divide and conquer. I would say the #1 thing that helped me with med school was working almost full-time while in undergrad and hanging out a lot with my friends as much as possible. Building good study habits would've been nice (i was the worst procrastinator in college.. better now) but you can relearn all that stuff in med school if you have to.. the main thing is just be brilliant and genuinely nice/optimistic/hard-working and everything will work out.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Yeah that seems brief for anatomy...which school is that at? I see you were accepted to Baylor which is one of my top choices also.

That would be Baylor. Clearly, you're expected to go in a fair amount outside of those two hours of dissection, but I gather it's still a lot less than at other schools.

My point is, if we're one of the schools that stresses anatomy less than many others, and my tankmate who helped teach the class in undergrad still feels she only got a nominal headstart... how much of an advantage do you really get by taking it as an undergrad?

 

[Moonglow]

Obtaining a degree in a Biosciences major does give one an advantage in med-school over a non-Biosciences majored student, simply by the former being educated in subjects to be covered (Cell Biology, BioChem, Molecular Bio, Histology, Human Anatomy, Virology and Genetics) - anyone who thinks differently is a fool.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Obtaining a degree in a Biosciences major does give one an advantage in med-school over a non-Biosciences majored student, simply by the former being educated in subjects to be covered (Cell Biology, BioChem, Molecular Bio, Histology, Human Anatomy, Virology and Genetics) - anyone who thinks differently is a fool.

Maybe. But if the question is, "Hi, I'm already a nonscience major with only one semester left before med school starts, should I bother cramming in any of these classes right before class starts," I'm not sure that just taking one or two of those upper division science classes is really going to make that big of a difference. If you're a science major who takes ALL of those classes, then I suppose the little one or two week jump starts you might get by taking any one of those classes might start to add up a little bit.

 

[Moonglow]

N=1... 🙄

One starts becoming a doctor as an undergrad when taking an educational path that leads you to the profession. The advantage gained by the Bio student concerns med-school subject matter, not in competition with other students. Can an Oriental Studies or Art History major do well in med-school, of course - but there are very few of them, and rarely do they get into Duke or go AOA.

 

[Anita817]

I only read about half of this thread since I'm supposed to be studying right now, so forgive me if someone posted something like this already:

I am also a non-science major and have asked many med students this same question for fear that I will be entering med school behind most of the rest of the class in my science knowledge. They all say it won't matter once you get there because professors know the basic requirements to enter med school and build up from there--they will teach you everything you need to know so prior knowledge is unnecessary--not only that, but a friend of mine (M1) actually told me she saw it as a disadvantage. She has a classmate with a biochem undergrad degree who pretty much never studied when they began their biochem block thinking it was all more of the same things he already learned in undergrad. He went into the first exam overconfident and was sorely disappointed with a barely passing grade. Think about it, when you were studying for the MCAT did it surprise you how much you DIDN'T remember from those basic classes? IMO, going in without prior knowledge forces you to pay attention and study.

 

[GoSpursGo]

N=1... 🙄

One starts becoming a doctor as an undergrad when taking an educational path that leads you to the profession. The advantage gained by the Bio student concerns med-school subject matter, not in competition with other students. Can an Oriental Studies or Art History major do well in med-school, of course - but there are very few of them, and rarely do they get into Duke or go AOA.

That might be true; I don't know, I'll let you guys know how my class breaks down at the end of the four years whether being a science major predicted you to finish higher in the class or not.

But again I don't really know that that's relevant to this specific OP's question. If you're already accepted to med school as a non-science major, I'm not sure that cramming a single random upper division class into your schedule as a senior is going to help you THAT much.

Again, YMMV. If you want to take an upper division science class because you find it genuinely interesting, by all means do so. Just don't take it thinking that by taking one upper division science class you're suddenly going to have some major advantage in med school, because you'll probably be sorely disappointed.

 

[JJMrK]

I plan on finishing my degree, playing some xbox, and going on vacation.

 

[WellWornLad]

Obtaining a degree in a Biosciences major does give one an advantage in med-school over a non-Biosciences majored student, simply by the former being educated in subjects to be covered (Cell Biology, BioChem, Molecular Bio, Histology, Human Anatomy, Virology and Genetics)

I decided to look for something a little more objective on the subject. No papers I can find show any significant academic differences between science and non-science majors, or in quantity of undergraduate science courses taken before med school.

Relationship between quantity of undergraduate science preparation and preclinical performance in medical school. Hall ML, Stocks MT. Acad Med. 1995 Mar;70(3):230-5.PMID: 7873012
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7873012

Medical students from natural science and nonscience undergraduate backgrounds. Similar academic performance and residency selection. Dickman RL, Sarnacki RE, Schimpfhauser FT, Katz LA. JAMA. 1980 Jun 27;243(24):2506-9.PMID: 7382038
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7382038

Effect of undergraduate college major on performance in medical school. Smith SR.
Acad Med. 1998 Sep;73(9):1006-8.PMID: 9759107
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9759107

Baccalaureate preparation for medical school: does type of degree make a difference? Zeleznik C, Hojat M, Veloski J.
J Med Educ. 1983 Jan;58(1):26-33.PMID: 6848754
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6848754

anyone who thinks differently is a fool.

You don't sound like someone who's fun to argue with...

 

[nonsciencemajor]

I WANT TO DO SOME HIGHER LEVEL SCIENCE COURSES...... i have nothing better to do next semester since I graduate very soon 😀

I have no regrets what so ever of being a nonscience major... it was absolutely my best decision i have ever made... i enjoyed undergrad greatly, and was very interested in the topics of my major.. i had no problem with the MCAT (having done only the pre-req's), and was accepted to some med schools.... Looking back, I am SSSOOO glad i was not a science major.. it would have made my undergrad experience so not enriching....

but anyways, if there are courses you all recommend... which ones should they be... and please be kind to prioritize them... btw, for those who suggested anatomy, I cannot take anatomy next semester since that is a fall semester course... unless i take the one semester anatomy & physiology course..... but that does not go into as much detail as the one year Anatomy and Physiology course.....

Should I take the upper level (400 level) Physiology course. The same course is also offered for bio graduate students?

 

[nonsciencemajor]

N=1... 🙄

One starts becoming a doctor as an undergrad when taking an educational path that leads you to the profession. The advantage gained by the Bio student concerns med-school subject matter, not in competition with other students. Can an Oriental Studies or Art History major do well in med-school, of course - but there are very few of them, and rarely do they get into Duke or go AOA.

I believe that is wrong. The reason why there are far more science majors than nonscience majors at Duke, is because of the sheer number of far more science majors applying as compared to nonscience majors. I am nearly sure that Duke does not care what an applicant's major is. On the contrary, I have heard that ad com's prefer nonscience majors over science majors IF the nonscience majors have proven competency (3.6+) on the required pre-req's and did well on the MCAT... they cannot hold nonscience majors responsible for not having done courses which are not required..... in fact, nonscience majors have the most balanced curriculum out of all applicants with a mix of humanities and sciences.....

Mount Sinai medical school in NY has a program called Humanities and Medicine Program, which is ONLY designed for nonscience majors.. if you are a science major, you are automatically ineligible...

so the argument that nonscience majors will have a hard time getting into Duke is just wrong..... it will be just as hard as for science majors...

I hear this argument that nonscience majors have a hard time getting into med school... but I hear this primarily from a lot of frustrated science premed majors, who are angry at the success of nonscience majors getting a higher grade in the required science pre-req's... which they consider their specialty.. they just find it unfair how a nonscience major gets a higher grade then them in sciences courses.. and after having done the prereq's go back to their wonderful nonscience major (immersing themselves in some great books and studies) while the science majors are still stuck for hours in some upper division science lab in a dark remote corner of the university filled with other frustrated science majors... not the best place to be in my opinion

 

[swamprat]

I really don't get how someone with a B.S. in Biochemistry could not pass a med school biochemistry test with average studying... that just doesnt make sense. I understand it is going to be intense and difficult, but a 4 YEAR degree in biochemistry?! It's not like all the sudden your in med school and now they're like ha there is no such thing as PDH or PFK, they lied to you in undergrad. I mean ok I'm sure you have to memorize a buncha pathways, but still... someone agree with me 😕

 

[nonsciencemajor]

I really don't get how someone with a B.S. in Biochemistry could not pass a med school biochemistry test with average studying... that just doesnt make sense. I understand it is going to be intense and difficult, but a 4 YEAR degree in biochemistry?! It's not like all the sudden your in med school and now they're like ha there is no such thing as PDH or PFK, they lied to you in undergrad. I mean ok I'm sure you have to memorize a buncha pathways, but still... someone agree with me 😕

exactly.. thats how I feel... and thats why i wanna prep for med school before august rolls around

 

[GoSpursGo]

I WANT TO DO SOME HIGHER LEVEL SCIENCE COURSES...... i have nothing better to do next semester since I graduate very soon 😀

Well, if it's really just out of personal interest, knock yourself out 🙂 I'm just saying, don't expect to be super-duper far ahead or anything.

I think biochem is probably the most high-yield thing you can take, as I would say that class probably had the most overlap between what was taught in undergrad and what I've seen in med school. After that, if there's any sort of histology class, I would try and take that as well; I never took it but I've just found it to be a very different way of looking at things so I wish I'd been exposed to it sooner. I never took Cell Bio; maybe someone else can comment on how well that transferred over.

I really don't get how someone with a B.S. in Biochemistry could not pass a med school biochemistry test with average studying... that just doesnt make sense. I understand it is going to be intense and difficult, but a 4 YEAR degree in biochemistry?! It's not like all the sudden your in med school and now they're like ha there is no such thing as PDH or PFK, they lied to you in undergrad. I mean ok I'm sure you have to memorize a buncha pathways, but still... someone agree with me 😕

Maybe my views are a little skewed coming from a systems-based, block-system school where we have 3 major exams in the fall that each have a small amount of biochem and that is usually connected to other subjects, as opposed to a subject-based curriculum where you might have exams on just biochem. But on my system, even if you're a little ahead on biochem, there's so much else you have to learn that it feels like a very small advantage.

 

[Perrotfish]

I WANT TO DO SOME HIGHER LEVEL SCIENCE COURSES...... i have nothing better to do next semester since I graduate very soon 😀

I have no regrets what so ever of being a nonscience major... it was absolutely my best decision i have ever made... i enjoyed undergrad greatly, and was very interested in the topics of my major.. i had no problem with the MCAT (having done only the pre-req's), and was accepted to some med schools.... Looking back, I am SSSOOO glad i was not a science major.. it would have made my undergrad experience so not enriching....

but anyways, if there are courses you all recommend... which ones should they be... and please be kind to prioritize them... btw, for those who suggested anatomy, I cannot take anatomy next semester since that is a fall semester course... unless i take the one semester anatomy & physiology course..... but that does not go into as much detail as the one year Anatomy and Physiology course.....

Should I take the upper level (400 level) Physiology course. The same course is also offered for bio graduate students

Yeah, but we're telling you not to take the courses. We're telling you that your time would be better spent learning a language, or working for money, or traveling, or doing nothing at all. Asking which course you should take is like asking the best way to touch a hot stove.

I really don't get how someone with a B.S. in Biochemistry could not pass a med school biochemistry test with average studying... that just doesnt make sense. I understand it is going to be intense and difficult, but a 4 YEAR degree in biochemistry?! It's not like all the sudden your in med school and now they're like ha there is no such thing as PDH or PFK, they lied to you in undergrad. I mean ok I'm sure you have to memorize a buncha pathways, but still... someone agree with me

Sorry, Med school Biochem and Undergrad Biochem are just different subjects. Med school biochem is about memorizing things: memorizing pathways and memorizing the names and symptoms of the diseases you get when something goes wrong with the pathway. There are no chemical equations, no reactions, and no labs. It's just memorizing facts and then regurgitating them.

 

[halekulani]

Anatomy is critical. Many of my classmates and I were advised not to take anatomy during college and we suffered through it as a result. Anatomy is far and away the hardest subject we have taken so far. The pathophys course will probably be more interesting but I bet med school pathophys will be so totally different than undergrad it will not help you at all.

i've taken undergraduate level anatomy before med school
it's worthless.

 

[halekulani]

Asking which course you should take is like asking the best way to touch a hot stove.

best quote of the thread 👍

 

[Narmerguy]

The refusal of undergrads in this post to heed the advice of medical students it completely mind-blowing. How on earth can you argue what is or isn't helpful for a level of education you have never participated in? Especially when the vast majority of people who are at that level speak to the contrary. Only on SDN.

 

[Anita817]

I really don't get how someone with a B.S. in Biochemistry could not pass a med school biochemistry test with average studying... that just doesnt make sense. I understand it is going to be intense and difficult, but a 4 YEAR degree in biochemistry?! It's not like all the sudden your in med school and now they're like ha there is no such thing as PDH or PFK, they lied to you in undergrad. I mean ok I'm sure you have to memorize a buncha pathways, but still... someone agree with me 😕

The student I told the story about did actually pass, but with a much lower grade than he had anticipated. The problem was not that everything he learned in 4 years of undergrad had changed, it's that he overestimated how well and in how much detail he would remember everything. One might argue he would have been better off studying as though he knew nothing to begin with.

Nonscience, I am taking biochem right now and while I do not expect this one class to help me much (if at all) in medical school, I find it more interesting and applicable than any of my basic science courses. It might be a good fit for you.

 

[silverhorse84]

Sorry, Med school Biochem and Undergrad Biochem are just different subjects. Med school biochem is about memorizing things: memorizing pathways and memorizing the names and symptoms of the diseases you get when something goes wrong with the pathway. There are no chemical equations, no reactions, and no labs. It's just memorizing facts and then regurgitating them.

Not trying to get argumentative or anything, but this is school dependent. I realize that at most schools what you say is true. However, at my school, biochem actually had a lot of medical information in it because the professor realized that 90% of her students were pre-health of some sort. So, my biochem class was actually very similar to the biochem I'm taking now, with the exception of this one (med school biochem) going into a bit more detail on phospholipids.
Also, I don't know about other schools, but my biochem course in med school covers a month of genetics. That wasn't in my biochem course in undergrad, but I did take a genetics course in undergrad - I'll let you know in February if it was helpful or not 😉

 

[yowhatup]

if there is one course I would recommend taking it is physiology. It is foundational for everything..... otherwise, other than physio, enjoy the semester.... dont worry about biochem, cell bio, etc....

 

[JJMrK]

Take autoshop if you own a car and don't know what a u joint is.

 

[LitleMsMedSkool]

I know a lot of students will say that after having been accepted to med school to enjoy life before med school starts... but I dont really want that advice anymore....

I am a nonscience major in undergrad having taken only a year of general bio, chem, orgo, and physics. Got accepted to med school, so excited about that. But I want to take some courses to prep me for med school.

Is cell bio worth taking? I know cell bio is a course in med school, but will this undergrad cell bio course lab also cover histology??

is biochem in undergrad worth taking? I have heard that undergrad biochem focuses on different things as compared to med school biochem. Is it better to just study Lippincott biochem rather than studying for an undergrad biochem class?

My school offers a year of human anatomy and physiology. Obviously I dont have a year, but my school also offers like an human anatomy and physiology course that runs one semester. Obviously it is scaled down from the year long course, but is it worth taking this class? Or should i do a course my undergrad offers which is like an 400 level human physiology course, and not worry about anatomy?

also is it worth taking pathophysiology undergrad course?


all these courses that i plan to take I WILL NOT register for but rather sit in the class, and study from the textbooks

I would definitely recommend signing up for the anatomy & physiology course. Audit if you can't take it. You need to start hearing the words and the terminology that will be thrown at you next year. Any early exposure is helpful. I don't think cell bio is necessary. If you want to take anything cellular . .maybe biochem?? I didn't have any of the courses before med school and they definitely would have been helpful. You won't use your orgo or physics in med school. You're bio will have been way to long ago and WAYYY to basic to even be relevant. You'll basically cover all your gen bio in the first few days of med school. Get as much exposure to the other topics as you can pre-med school. Best of luck.

 

[halekulani]

courses like biochem, mol/cell bio, and genetics transfer over really well because you cover it at a similar level in med school

the advanced level of anatomy is not met by undergrad standards, which is why i cannot recommend it to be useful at all.