philosophy majors

[jwtaylor]

i know there has to be some philosophy majors out there who have applied to med school. i'm hoping there are a few on sd.net. tell me how the philosophy curriculum has prepared you for medical school. fill me in. i've never met someone who applied to medical school from any other major than bio or biochem. in fact, at my school everyone believes pre-medical is a major and their faces get all contorted when i tell them i'm philo and plan on medicine.

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[bmarms]

it was good for me. granted, i was a post-bacc and didn't always know i wanted to do medicine. but it definitely helps with your critical thinking skills (which are essential for the MCATs and beyond). it also teaches you to be a concise writer- which i'm guessing will be good for chart notes. most importantly, you learn to consider one issue from a range of viewpoints.

 

[jad2121]

i know there has to be some philosophy majors out there who have applied to med school. i'm hoping there are a few on sd.net. tell me how the philosophy curriculum has prepared you for medical school. fill me in. i've never met someone who applied to medical school from any other major than bio or biochem. in fact, at my school everyone believes pre-medical is a major and their faces get all contorted when i tell them i'm philo and plan on medicine.

I was an english major and a philosophy minor...then i was a postbacc. Now maybe others had a different experience, but for me, philosophy and english did not help me AT ALL in the sciences. I had to learn an entirely different study method in postbacc. Thank god I had good friends to help me. the humanities did, however, help me in the applications. I wrote my essays really fast while my science major friends toiled away.

 

[Hephzibah]

I am in my last year of undergrad finishing up my Phi degree. Obviously, I haven't started med school yet so I can't give you advice from that perspective. However, I know what you're talking about with people giving you confused looks when you tell them your major and career goals. I think that it's a great combination. Philosophy broadened the way that I think about things and made me challenge everything I read and heard, especially in terms of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. This helped me to learn the material better, since I was constantly challenging it. Also, the ridiculous amount of reading and writing that I've done was good prep for the MCAT, especially the VR. In terms of having a career as a doctor, I think that everyone has philosophical questions whether they recognize them as such or not. Being aware of these questions and having gone through the painful process of thinking about them helps relate to people, in my opinion. Also, all of my interviewers thought that I made a wise choice in choosing to major in Phi, especially the ones at Tulane. 🙂

 

[cgjock80]

I was a neuroscience and philosophy dual degree in college and when asked about how the two fused (similar to medicine with a phil background) i responded it was about being able to answer both how and why questions. Physiology will answer questions to how are bodies work (how the arm moves, how our lungs functions, how smoking hurts our systems). Philosophy can answer why questions. Why do we move, why do we not think more health consciously. These questions can all be answered appropriately by referring to training in ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Phil majors have a greater explanatory bredth

 

[Dr OCD]

im a science major with a phil minor and i have to admit that med schools loved talking about philosophy and especially biomedical ethics. if i were you, i would try to take a biomedical ethics class. if you ever get the chance to do an independent project or research paper, do something related to biomedical ethics or philosophy of science because not only will you make connections in your mind between science and philosophy but it will be something you can talk about. lastly, i think philosophy is great because it challenges your beliefs and gives you opportunities to form a set of ideals and principles you are comfortable relying on when making decisions. this is a key skill, i believe, for a physician. all the best!

 

[bellacnella]

I am a Philosophy and Bio double major. The main thing I think is that the right sequence of courses sharpens your analytic skills, critical thinking and "thinking on your toes." I am mostly into logic and epistemology, but easier courses in ethics would definately influence the type of doctor you will become. Ah, I heart philosophy <3 and hated being a bio major, but
i stuck with it.

 

[Quix]

Principally courses in medical ethics, but it's been very useful to see the "big picture" (i.e., seeing how concepts fit together between the sciences, sciences and humanities, etc.). It absolutely helped with the essays on the MCAT, as I lucked out and got two that seemed *explicitly written* for philosophy majors. 😉

There are quite a few ways in which the major helps, as philosophy draws upon many different disciplines. Further, it is the conceptual basis for many other disciplines (e.g., naturalistic and materialistic assumptions about the sciences, nature of empirical vs. rationalistic epistemology, etc.).

 

[Nataliemay24]

Philosophy can answer why questions.

you must have been a better student of philosophy than me to have successfully answered philosophy's questions. 🙂

 

[brianmartin]

I was a poli sci major with minor in bio...ended up taking a lot of philosophy classes too. I loved my political philosophy classes. I think it is really valuable to be aware of our political history, what motivates people and large groups, and how that affects "the system" at large. Also, I just LOVE to ponder the "why" questions that someone already mentioned. And science is a big part of that but not the only part.

How do we KNOW what we know?
WHY are we here?

I ask myself these questions at least once a day 🙂

There are so many areas of human inquiry, that to limit yourself to just studying science is just crazy. Let us investigate ALL of the wonderful things humans create...medicine...philosophy...art..music...everything.

 

[gotmeds?]

To be honest, I don't think being a philosophy major has helped me much in med school (so far). But I do think it helped me get into med school.

 

[kronickm]

Philosophy, if nothing else, helped me a great deal with "self" discovery. I cannot say if it did or will help with medical school, but it has helped me as a person immensely.

 

[dth92]

+10 on MCAT VR

Haha, well I like to think that learning phil helped me develop the skills necessary to smoke that section. Probably not, but the limited exposure I've had has been fun - only a phil minor here. My major is, you guessed it, B-I-O-L-O-G-Y.

 

[cgjock80]

you must have been a better student of philosophy than me to have successfully answered philosophy's questions. 🙂

Good catch. Philosophy training will assist you in appropriately asking "why" questions.

 

[geneticclone]

medical ethics.

 

[YanksFan02]

i'm a philosophy major - every interviewer i've spoken to has really eaten it up. the only negative thing i can say is that being a humanities major while doing the pre-med classes definitely leaves too little room for electives. the other nice thing about majoring in philo was that its one of those humanities subjects that doesn't have an ass-backward relationship to medicine (it was much easier for me to legitimize than a history major would have been). i think it's served me well. good luck!

 

[w14b1]

Another philosophy major here. I usually don't post but I just had to share in the love. Someone said we score the highest on the MCAT as a major, must be all those critical thinking skills 🙄

 

[warriorpoet85]

I am a chemistry and philosophy double major. Honestly, if I could go back and do it all over I would have just beena a philosophy major without the double in Chem. My chem major has only contributed to decreasing my GPA. If I had not of majored in it I would have had about a 3.9 or higher (my non BCPM GPA is a 3.95).

I felt that being a philo major really prepared me for the written section of the MCAT but I have not been to medical school yet so...yeah.

 

[brianmartin]

the other nice thing about majoring in philo was that its one of those humanities subjects that doesn't have an ass-backward relationship to medicine (it was much easier for me to legitimize than a history major would have been)

I don't understand this...adcoms do not require you to "legitimize" your choice of major to them. And I fail to see how philosophy is more closely related to medicine than other humanities. Each discipline is unique and you can't really compare each of them to "medicine" using similar criteria.

 

[blondie08]

Philosophy major here... i'm applying now, so ill let you know how it goes. i think it did help with my mcat VR, but my junior year, i couldnt take any science classes, which i think hurt me in the other mcat areas... since i took it after this year

 

[YanksFan02]

brianmartin - i didn't mean this offensively in any way. all i mean was that when you go on interviews and you have a major outside a scientific realm, they often ask how you chose your major in consonance with pursuing medcine. i feel like it's easier to link philosophy with medicine than other humanities fields - but i definitely didn't mean to imply that you need to have a perfectly worked out connection between a major and career, or that you have to legitimize something so strictly.

 

[Hephzibah]

Another philosophy major here. I usually don't post but I just had to share in the love. Someone said we score the highest on the MCAT as a major, must be all those critical thinking skills 🙄

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2006/mcatgpabymaj1.htm

According to this, humanities majors applying to medical school score higher than the average on every section of the MCAT. However, I would not recommend taking this route merely for the higher MCAT score. A better reason would be that it is sweet and/or you enjoy phi. I'm doing my senior project on non-science majors applying to medical school because it's sort of unheard of at my particular undergrad institution. Hopefully whatever information I compile will be helpful to advisors and their advisees in the future. If anyone knows of any place I can get the information from actual studies done on this subject, especially as it relates to specific majors (instead of major categories), please let me know!

 

[Quix]

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2006/mcatgpabymaj1.htm

According to this, humanities majors applying to medical school score higher than the average on every section of the MCAT. However, I would not recommend taking this route merely for the higher MCAT score. A better reason would be that it is sweet and/or you enjoy phi. I'm doing my senior project on non-science majors applying to medical school because it's sort of unheard of at my particular undergrad institution. Hopefully whatever information I compile will be helpful to advisors and their advisees in the future. If anyone knows of any place I can get the information from actual studies done on this subject, especially as it relates to specific majors (instead of major categories), please let me know!

I'd suggest hitting http://www.eric.ed.gov/ to see what research is out there.

 

[TarHeel55]

Another philosophy major here. 🙂

When I took my first philosophy course in undergrad, I discovered that people in philosophy ask questions that I'd been asking myself all my life. Questions like "What does it mean to be a good person? Is there objective right and wrong? What is truth? How do we know what we know?" These struck me as the big questions. I loved the way people in philosophy pursued these questions in a systematic and rigorous way. Another part of the attraction for me was that I had always loved writing. I found that writing philosophy papers gave me an outlet for creative expression that I never personally found in my prereq science classes.

After taking a few philosophy classes, you will learn to quickly spot the logical flaws in arguments. You will also ideally learn to make your own arguments clearer, more concise, and more convincing. Philosophers place a premium on looking at issues from multiple angles and devising creative solutions to familiar problems. I like to think these critical thinking skills will help me when it comes to approaching clinical cases and developing differential diagnoses, but who knows.

I would strongly urge you to chose your major because you like the way it challenges your thinking and opens your mind to aspects of the world and human experience. Maybe philosophy does that for you, or maybe it is history or biology or something else. You'll be prepared enough for the MCAT by your science prereq classes. I've been there and I know. Friends of mine who have finished med school tell me that I'll learn all the science I need to know to be a good clinician in med school. I trust them on that one.

Philosophy gives me ways of thinking about the world that my science classes, fascinating as they are, could never give me. I will carry those approaches with me through med school and beyond, and for me, it's enough to have made philosophy a great choice.

 

[chebella7604]

I'm a philosophy major as well. I'm still in undergrad but I've spoken to a few doctors on med school admissions committees and they really responded well. One of them specifically mentioned that they loved to interview philosophy majors before I even mentioned the fact that it was my major. There's also a faculty member at my university who has joint-appointment in both the med school and the philosophy department.

People who are less familiar with the med school admissions process do look at me like I'm crazy when I say it but that doesn't really mean much. It's a perfectly fine choice for a premed and I love it anyway besides.

 

[Idioteque]

Philosophy can answer why questions.

Looks like somebody hasn't been keeping up with their philosophy. Metaphysics died, Nietzsche killed it. No one asks 'why' anymore - they ask 'how'.

 

[midn]

I just wanted to give props to you philosophy majors. I'm taking a Human Nature class (intro philosophy class) right now and damn is it hard. Reading just a few pages of my philosophy book takes me hours.

Luckily, there are enough freshmen in there doing terrible so that make it easier for me to make an A 😀.

 

[Quix]

Looks like somebody hasn't been keeping up with their philosophy. Metaphysics died, Nietzsche killed it. No one asks 'why' anymore - they ask 'how'.

Unless one rejects Nietzschean nihilism and returns to Aristotle following the "fact/value" challenge to non-teleological methodologies. 😉

 

[bellacnella]

Unless one rejects Nietzschean nihilism and returns to Aristotle following the "fact/value" challenge to non-teleological methodologies. 😉

Quix, you're awesome 😉

 

[HPMMajor]

I find that if you can read philosophy, understand it, and critique it compared to real life examples, you can pretty much comprehend anything! I feel like it can only help your reading, writing, and judgment skills that are essential to medicine. My school requires 15 credits of phil. for all students.

 

[Idioteque]

Unless one rejects Nietzschean nihilism and returns to Aristotle following the "fact/value" challenge to non-teleological methodologies. 😉

A return to Aristotle? I guess we must rethink 'value'. Good luck.