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Pre-Med=Bitch?
Started by kt.charlong
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Yeah it does suck, it nearly crushed me. I'm a better person because of it.
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kt.charlong said:
Depends on what exactly you're answering is. Being a "pre-med" major is a bitch because if you don't get in you tend to have fewer options otherwise. Many pre-med majors pick a science major because they are interested in science and the prerequisite coursework is typical of a science major (biology, chemistry, physics etc.). The pre-med curriculum is called a bitch because the prerequisite courses tend to be geared to ?weed out? people who aren?t as competitive in science classes. Also, pre-med courses have people called ?gunners? who aim to do extremely well to look good on paper and tend to flame the rest of their classmates in the process. If you?re a science minded person, pre-med pre-med isn?t really any more difficult than any other part of college.
Are you from Quebec or something? Pre-med in the US is nothing. For the most part it amounts to taking the pre-requisite courses most med schools like to see in their applicants. Some US universities have actual pre-med majors, but those are no harder than any other biology degree.kt.charlong said:
Does Quebec have some kind of pre-med prep program for their high-school students or something? I've never heard of anyone referring to pre-med studies as "a complete bitch" unless they were marginal students anyway.
To tell the truth, you seem like a gimmick poster to me. Your profile just screams "attention *****" and for being so forums literate, you seem to ignore the other international type forums where your questions could be better answered.
For some it's easier than others; I wouldnt go as far as saying one is a marginal student if they have difficulties as the post above does.
I think the people that find it not too hard are good at adapting to the different courses and have a broad interst in the sciences. I didnt think the pre-reqs for med school are difficult but i think it's because i was wiling to put the time into it, not so much because I had to, but b.c i wanted to. The classes, depending where you go too, are time-intensive. For many there are diminishing returns on studying at a certain point. You have to figure out how to prevent that from occuring too early when you are studying which generally means having a broad interest. So it isn't difficult if you are in the correct frame of mind
I think the people that find it not too hard are good at adapting to the different courses and have a broad interst in the sciences. I didnt think the pre-reqs for med school are difficult but i think it's because i was wiling to put the time into it, not so much because I had to, but b.c i wanted to. The classes, depending where you go too, are time-intensive. For many there are diminishing returns on studying at a certain point. You have to figure out how to prevent that from occuring too early when you are studying which generally means having a broad interest. So it isn't difficult if you are in the correct frame of mind
Croatalus_atrox said:
Poor choice of words on my part, my friend. Sorry.hnbui said:
As far as I can tell most pre-med programs are no more difficult than getting a degree in any of the sciences. If you would struggle to get a Biology degree, you'd struggle in pre-med studies as well. There's no reason to single out pre-med studies as "a complete bitch" more than you would any other science degree program in the US. But I think that in Quebec, high-school students there have pre-med prep programs that they use for admissions to French-Canadian med schools right out of high-school. To a high-school student, such programs might rightfully be described as "a bitch".
It isn't so hard when you look at it one semester at a time. If you go to a liberal arts college, though, I would definitely try to balance the coursework out with a goodly number of humanities classes just to keep your sanity. Maybe try and take up a non-science related hobby as well, like art or music. There's something to be said about people who spend four years of their life never leaving the lab. 😉 Besides, medical schools tend to look kindly on applications that show more than the standard BCMP GPA/medical volunteer work.
Croatalus_atrox said:
yeah much better 🙂
To me the courses in premed just require more studying. Nothing that's extremely hard if you just put some effort into it. Most of the myths about how premed is hell come from those college students who are failing gen bio because they don't put in the effort.
Pre-med = one way trip to insanityvile 
Just kidding 🙂 , but it is not hard if you put time into it, but at the same time, you got to compete since ~11-12% get into medical school
Just kidding 🙂 , but it is not hard if you put time into it, but at the same time, you got to compete since ~11-12% get into medical school
It's not that the courses in pre-med require more studying, it's just that being a pre-med requires more study, regardless of your major, because good grades are so critical to med school acceptance.hnbui said:
Croatalus_atrox said:
maybe you didn't notice the little part of my post "to me" meaning that it's my subjective point of view that the courses in premed requires more study than courses in other area of subjects. How elementary of you do just downplay another individual's opinion.
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hnbui said:
just wait until next year. hehe.
of course the pre med curriculum isnt any harder than what youd get majoring in a hard core science. i dont think anyone has ever made that claim before.
saying that someone is mediocre or anything of the sort for having difficulty in pre med type classes is ignorant. you can possibly make such a claim at your own university, but every school is different. and the degree of difficulty of such classes surely doesnt follow US News rankings either.
Doc.Holliday said:
did you not notice how i posted the that most of students that find it difficult are the ones who do not put in enough effort? ie. those who drop out because they party the night before the test, etc.
I don't see how making such a claim implies that i am calling these these people mediocre or ignorant?
velocypedalist said:
sigh.. grinding away... i h8 circuits 🙁.
The concerns and worries of the majority of people in college and those of the Pre-med are totally different.
For a huge number of students the bachelor's degree is the end of their academic life. They want the piece of paper. Or, in too many cases, their parents want them to get the piece of paper because it's good for them. They have the mentality from the very beginning that class is merely an obstacle they must wait out (whilst enjoying themselves in parties, drinking, and other pleasures of the body) before going on to real life. To them the question "Does this class require a C- or a true C to pass?," is legitimate and warranted.
Hell, I don't blame them. If my grades didn't matter I would probably be "enriching" my life in many non-academic ways...
So the (associated) worst things about being a pre-med are:
1. The pressure-induced stress you experience that few others can empathize with.
2. The fact that your friends will be going out on weeknights, weekends, afternoons... while you must study.
3. The waiting. Everything in this process takes forever. Nothing occurs quickly.
All three get worse as you approach the MCAT and slowly get better after the MCAT.
Of course, med school itself is a different story entirely...
For a huge number of students the bachelor's degree is the end of their academic life. They want the piece of paper. Or, in too many cases, their parents want them to get the piece of paper because it's good for them. They have the mentality from the very beginning that class is merely an obstacle they must wait out (whilst enjoying themselves in parties, drinking, and other pleasures of the body) before going on to real life. To them the question "Does this class require a C- or a true C to pass?," is legitimate and warranted.
Hell, I don't blame them. If my grades didn't matter I would probably be "enriching" my life in many non-academic ways...
So the (associated) worst things about being a pre-med are:
1. The pressure-induced stress you experience that few others can empathize with.
2. The fact that your friends will be going out on weeknights, weekends, afternoons... while you must study.
3. The waiting. Everything in this process takes forever. Nothing occurs quickly.
All three get worse as you approach the MCAT and slowly get better after the MCAT.
Of course, med school itself is a different story entirely...
UseUrHeadFred said:
different as in things get better or worse?
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Um, it is fairly difficult, and you can put down the aura now.hnbui said:
seth03 said:
I don't know. I'm not there yet.
My magic 8 ball (and the folks in the Allopathic forum) are saying, "It's not looking good."
I'm from Qu?bec, and I wouldn't even call college (cegep) a bitch. It wasn't hard at all, well except physics 2 and 3 (probably the only course where no amount of studying will make you ace the exam, unless your IQ is 160+). The only ''bad'' thing with college here is the competition. I'm not kidding when I tell you that most of my classmates never made a huge mistake in any class (by mistake, let's say having a B+ in biology or maths). There's no room for error. Get a B- in a course, and you can kiss med school goodbye (unless you go to university, in a major like biology, then you re-apply 2 years later). So basically, the overall top students enter med schools, and to enter it at a young age (most MS1s are 19), well, you'll study your ass off to own the curve in every single exam. That's the tiring thing in my opinion. I can't even recall the number of 95+ grades I had in cegep, and how much it left me indifferent, because it was what I was supposed to have if I wanted to be in med school.Croatalus_atrox said:
You're always getting pissed because you only have 90, and you're only 20 points over the mean, and you ideally need 25 points over the provincial mean for that exam to get an excellent R score to enter med school (which is THE program here. It seems only a few of the top students are interested in something else. Go figure)
Come to think of it, I don't have a lot of memories from Cegep. Those 2 years of intensive studying passed really fast, and now I'm done with general studying (no more physics 😎 ) and I'm where I wanted to be, so I can't complain about the sacrifices I made in college.
UseUrHeadFred said:
Funny, I just had a talk with a friend of mine who's in his 2nd year. Those guys have developed efficient methods of studying, and they study like 5 hours a day and always end up with A or B. I'm still learning how to be more efficient, but damn, there's definitely something wrong with my methods when I'm studying 2 times more than a 2nd year. The 2nd years tell me it's actually easier (there's more stuff to know, but you know how to study, so it seems easier than 1st year). Go figure...
Could you please explain the pre-University school system in Quebec? It seems like it resembles the UK system (which confuses the hell out of me).Blake said:
Anyway, here in the US, nearly all of us begin attending school at 5yrs old, called Kindergarten. The next five grades (First thru Fifth) are collectively called Elementary school (some school districts may include Sixth grade in that as well). Students then enter what is known as Junior High (or Middle School depending on the school district) which is composed of either 7th and 8th grades or 6th thru 8th grades. After that, US students enter High School (pretty consistent throughout the US). High School is composed of 9th thru 12th grades, and most students will graduate from high school by age 18. In the US, we generally refer to students in each high school grade by the following terms: 9th grade - Freshmen, 10th grade -Sophomores, 11th grade - Juniors, 12th grade - Seniors. In the US, you must complete schooling thru 12th grade to graduate with a diploma. We only have to attend school until age 16, but if you drop out before completing 12th grade you are not considered to have completed your education. Most universities in the US want you to have a high school diploma before they will offer you admission. As far as medical school goes, in the US they generally will want you to have completed a four-year university education (bachelor's degree) before you attend medical school. Most US med school entrants will be 22yrs or older when they start, and younger students will be the rare exception.
Because the info you have provided here sounds a lot like the British school system, I assume that you can be considered to have completed your education at 16 years of age, and that those who continue on into what is known over there as "college" are on the track to enter universities. College in the US apparently has a different meaning, because here college and university are considered relatively interchangeable by most people. I also assume that you folks also take national standardized subject matter exams that you use to demonstrate what you have learned, instead of the US system where the diploma indicates that you have received a broad general education and done sufficiently well that you were allowed to graduate.
It's exactly like that. When we're done with high school (5 years of it), we're around 17. Then, for those who wish, they can enter college. College prepares you for university, the big league. College last 2 years for those who want to go to university, and for those who want to get a job after college, well, it's 3 years (programs like basic nursing, basic computer sciences, etc).Croatalus_atrox said:
So, for those taking the 2 years-route, they have a choice. You can enter natural sciences, which is divided in pure sciences and health sciences (pre-med). In my college, both programs were about the same in size (250-250). It's basically the same thing, except pure sciences has 1 extra math class, and health sciences has 1 extra chemistry class. So out of these 500 people, about 300 were actually targetting medicine. Only ~ 25 entered med school at the end of these 2 years and that was a great year... (a few years ago, about 15 were entering med school every year from my college which is the biggest college in the province...) We can enter medicine right after college, if your grades are good enough, and for those who weren't so lucky, well they can go to university, in a program like biology, biochemistry, etc, and then reapply to enter it.
Now for those interested in other university programs (arts, literature, geography, etc), they enter a college program like Human sciences, etc.
Thanks for the information! I'm not making any judgements, but that system seems so weird and alien to me because it is so different than what we have here. It's just fascinating.Blake said:
If you happen to know, how does the difference in school systems affect Canadians applying to US med schools? Like I said, most US med schools will want you to have a bachelor's degree before you enter med school. Did you apply to any US med schools? Do you know anyone who did? I think I'm going to head on over to the Canadian forums and check them out.
To tell you the truth, maybe 0,1 % of quebec med students want to live in the USA, so most of us never cared to apply there. You have to understand that french canada (qu?bec) is different from the rest of Canada. I'm quite confident that English Canada has an education system similar to yours. I don't know any college student who applied to an american school, but I know that Mcgill (the only english med school in Qu?bec) is notorious for having its med students leave Canada to practice in the USA. After all, Mcgill has a good reputation (overrated, but still good nonetheless) and it's in english, so why not cross the border and go to the USA for more bucks ?Croatalus_atrox said:
Man, I should stop slacking on SDN..Back to more patho 😳
Pre-med is easy, dont worry about it. The pre-recs are almost a joke, some just say its hard to get some sort of attention.
hnbui said:
sorry, only the first part of my post was directed at you.
youve gotten off easy in gen chem thats for sure, next year (again depending on how hardcore you are, and whether or not youre a pansy and take the easy way out) you'll begin to understand why some call it a bitch.
in general i do think that those complaining about premed are just whiny and often just arent intelligent enough to hack it. ive been lucky enough to get stuck with every notoriously hard professor in existence, one after another, and there are probably others with similar experiences. that said, my gpa may not be spectacular, but my mcat sure puts it into perspective.
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When I saw the title, I thought this discussion was about those females who refuse to so much as talk to a guy b/c they are "pre-med" focused. They can't get "involved" right now b/c they have a goal and men are nothing more than scum in their life. Good to know that others consider variant meanings for the word bitch.
Good to know that others consider variant meanings for the word bitch.What the hell is an "attention *****"?!?! Jeezus I cant belive that! No, Im not from Quebec, but I have lived there. Thanks for the feedback guys, the reason I asked this is because I was talking with a girl from work and she said that pre-Med was downright ****ty, so I got scared and then I came here and asked people who would know best. Thanks again toodles!
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Troof. Anybody who ever even goes to class or reads the book for organic chemistry doesn't deserve to go to med school. I smoked kilos of weed and drank gallons of vodka before all my finals. I usually only slept ~20 hours in an average day, except for the occasional 30-hour party binge.JamesD said:
🙄
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well, duhBlake said:
kt.charlong said:
I graduate in December, and it wasn't so bad. I think what made it worse was the fact that I had to work to pay for school. My grades are still very competitive, but it took a lot of effort. I don't mind the gunners in the class, I feel sorry for them...and I even help them out throughout the semester, only to see that they walk past me a few months later and pretend they don't see me...
Just think about this...a doc once told me the hardest part about becoming a doctor was being a "pre-med"... I am soooo ready to start med school next year...I just need ONE acceptance 🙂
Take Care!
Karina
