Pre-MD/MPH majors

[nkolstate96]

My school doesn't offer a bachelor's public health, but I want to get my MD/MPH in the future..
My pre-med advisor and science residential college advisor are pulling everyone who got a B or below on the last intro to bio exam, and asking us to consider a change in major from biology to something that would better suit our interests.
In my case, I think they may be right. I think my GPA would be much better with a major related to public health, rather than biology, because the med schools I'm interested in are also adamantly discouraging biology majors unless we're truly passionate about bio.
I'm in my 1st semester. I know it's early, but I don't want my GPA to suffer from science courses as a bio major which I hear are not totally necessary. Willing to take a minor in bio.

What type of majors would best suit an MPH?

Thanks again and sorry for my naivety. It seems like everyone is freaking out in my class.

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[Doudline]

Psychology, mathematics, statistics, sociology, anthropology, public affairs, regional studies, international relations... anything but a public health major, honestly. You'll learn all the required skills during your MPH, which you should pursue AFTER you have experience working in health care as an attending.

 

[rugbyram7]

It depends on what you want to concentrate in during your MPH studies. I'm currently an MPH student concentrating in Epidemiology and my Microbiology undergrad degree has definitely come in handy, but like Doudline said, you'll learn everything you need to know. If you want to go into Epidemiology or Biostatistics a major that requires you to take a couple statistics classes will definitely benefit you, while Environmental, Agricultural, and Occupational Health MPH students would benefit from more chemistry related classes. Health Admin and Health Policy students could benefit from any type of political science, business, or sociology/psychology disciplines, although I don't know too much about those concentrations. Health Promotion students could benefit from something like communications or sociology and psychology. But really, there are people from all different backgrounds getting their MPH so major in what is interesting to you and just make sure you take the required MPH and MD pre-req classes.

 

[nkolstate96]

Yeah, I wanted to do health policy and systems management. I'm covering my pre-med science pre-reqs currently, and after spring, will only need physics/lab. I'd have to take sociology and psych, but a new major would likely allow those as major specific electives. Is anthro seen as a "serious degree"? I was looking at anthropology and political science and business, mostly.