Pre-pt undergrad major?

[joannagutshall]

Hi everyone! Currently, I am a undergrad freshman and I am in the process of applying to switch my major to athletic training. The school I go to also offers exercise science. I know that these two majors are fairly common when going into physical therapy. Between athletic training and exercise science, what major will be more beneficial in preparing me for DPT school? Pros and cons of each major? Thanks in advance for any advice you all can give me!

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[wildboar819]

I think both can be beneficial, I can really only speak from an Athletic Training standpoint as that was my major. The biggest pro for my major I believe is the clinical experience you gain as an ATC. As an undergrad, my program required 135 hours per semester from sophomore through senior year. That hands-on experience meant I graduated with at least 800 clinical hours(probably more because we all loved working our sports enough to go work when we're not scheduled), so I was ready to go out and be the health care provider assessing/rehabbing injuries on my own. The past 4 years between undergrad and now, I worked as the ATC at a local high school for a couple years, then was transitioned into the orthopedic clinic I work for where I still do outreach ATC stuff in addition to various roles around the clinic. I felt my athletic training background has really prepared me for the clinical side of PT. I still have a TON to learn in the classroom, but I feel confident in a lot of my hands-on stuff. I think highlighting these experiences are what helped get me into school as my grades weren't nearly as high as many of the people posting on here.

From what I know of my friends that majored in Exercise Science that were going the PT route, I think they went more in depth in the classroom than we did in areas like kinesiology and biomechanics. I think more research and projects as well from what I recall. So I'd imagine that in the academic sense Exercise Science may be a little more rigorous- from what I remember, courses like Bio/Physics/Chemistry were required for ES majors, while for me as an AT major I had to do anatomy/phys and then various other sciences, but not the aforementioned big three.

I also feel that Exercise Science, unless you go the PT/PA route, I feel it's more limiting than AT. At the very least, if I had never gotten into PT school, never gotten into grad school, Athletic Training is a career path I could've stayed on. I could've gotten my Masters in AT and worked at the college level, could've gotten into teaching AT, etc. I'm not as knowledgeable about Exercise Science so I don't want to step on any toes, but from what I can tell, if you don't get into grad school, it's a little more challenging finding a full career path with an Exercise Science degrees. I fully admit I've never done the research of what people with ES degrees do as most of the people I know in that field have gone on to PT/PA/some other graduate healthcare field so I'm sure I'm missing a lot of possibilities that an ES degree offers, again, don't want to offend anyone.

Ultimately, I think both are great preparation for school and definitely each have their own pros and cons. I think it boils down to what interests you more. At the end of the day, PT schools are going to teach everyone the same way, regardless of major. PT schools will teach everyone what they need to know, so I don't think picking one over the other as an undergrad will turn into a "Man, I should've chose the other one." situation later.

 

[ya1]

Doesn't matter. Take the route where you are more likely to get higher grades or takes less time, or cheaper. If none of the above is an issue , choose the one that is more appealing to you.

 

[joannagutshall]

I think both can be beneficial, I can really only speak from an Athletic Training standpoint as that was my major. The biggest pro for my major I believe is the clinical experience you gain as an ATC. As an undergrad, my program required 135 hours per semester from sophomore through senior year. That hands-on experience meant I graduated with at least 800 clinical hours(probably more because we all loved working our sports enough to go work when we're not scheduled), so I was ready to go out and be the health care provider assessing/rehabbing injuries on my own. The past 4 years between undergrad and now, I worked as the ATC at a local high school for a couple years, then was transitioned into the orthopedic clinic I work for where I still do outreach ATC stuff in addition to various roles around the clinic. I felt my athletic training background has really prepared me for the clinical side of PT. I still have a TON to learn in the classroom, but I feel confident in a lot of my hands-on stuff. I think highlighting these experiences are what helped get me into school as my grades weren't nearly as high as many of the people posting on here.

From what I know of my friends that majored in Exercise Science that were going the PT route, I think they went more in depth in the classroom than we did in areas like kinesiology and biomechanics. I think more research and projects as well from what I recall. So I'd imagine that in the academic sense Exercise Science may be a little more rigorous- from what I remember, courses like Bio/Physics/Chemistry were required for ES majors, while for me as an AT major I had to do anatomy/phys and then various other sciences, but not the aforementioned big three.

I also feel that Exercise Science, unless you go the PT/PA route, I feel it's more limiting than AT. At the very least, if I had never gotten into PT school, never gotten into grad school, Athletic Training is a career path I could've stayed on. I could've gotten my Masters in AT and worked at the college level, could've gotten into teaching AT, etc. I'm not as knowledgeable about Exercise Science so I don't want to step on any toes, but from what I can tell, if you don't get into grad school, it's a little more challenging finding a full career path with an Exercise Science degrees. I fully admit I've never done the research of what people with ES degrees do as most of the people I know in that field have gone on to PT/PA/some other graduate healthcare field so I'm sure I'm missing a lot of possibilities that an ES degree offers, again, don't want to offend anyone.

Ultimately, I think both are great preparation for school and definitely each have their own pros and cons. I think it boils down to what interests you more. At the end of the day, PT schools are going to teach everyone the same way, regardless of major. PT schools will teach everyone what they need to know, so I don't think picking one over the other as an undergrad will turn into a "Man, I should've chose the other one." situation later.

Thank you!!

 

[PTGalPaL]

I was an exercise science major so I can hopefully shed a little light on that perspective!
Funny enough I actually started as an AT major and after my first semester and meeting with my counselor I made the switch to Ex Phys (sci).

From my experience and from the school I attended, if I had stayed with AT I was going to have to take several (4-6) extra classes outside my major to account for all the of the pre-reqs I was going to need to apply to PT school, which meant either taking on more credit hours every semester, staying summers, and ultimately just more $$$.

Now, On the flip side of that, as Ex Phys I did have to take a lot of "unnecessary" classes (Organic chem, biochem, Metabolism 1&2) that didn't count as PT pre-reqs and were difficult and very in depth. That is probably something you run into with either track though, TBH.

But Ex Phys is also something you can do something with after graduation aside from a health graduate program! You can become a licensed exercise physiologist and work in hospitals, clinics, companies, schools, to help their populations. They work in cardiac rehab centers a bunch too! Now it is worth saying that those jobs are more scarce, but still. You can also be a certified Personal Trainer about halfway through the program to make some extra money.

Ultimately I agree with wildboar^, Both tracks would be just fine in preparing you for PT school, just depends on what kind of training you want to have or what kind of college experience! While an AT major may feel more prepared clinically, perhaps I feel more prepared for the classroom learning? Probably depends on the person for that part, but that's I guess how I would boil it down maybe. I would only advise that with either track make sure you're hitting all your PT pre-reqs however you have to!

 

[wildboar819]

I was an exercise science major so I can hopefully shed a little light on that perspective!
Funny enough I actually started as an AT major and after my first semester and meeting with my counselor I made the switch to Ex Phys (sci).

From my experience and from the school I attended, if I had stayed with AT I was going to have to take several (4-6) extra classes outside my major to account for all the of the pre-reqs I was going to need to apply to PT school, which meant either taking on more credit hours every semester, staying summers, and ultimately just more $$$.

Now, On the flip side of that, as Ex Phys I did have to take a lot of "unnecessary" classes (Organic chem, biochem, Metabolism 1&2) that didn't count as PT pre-reqs and were difficult and very in depth. That is probably something you run into with either track though, TBH.

But Ex Phys is also something you can do something with after graduation aside from a health graduate program! You can become a licensed exercise physiologist and work in hospitals, clinics, companies, schools, to help their populations. They work in cardiac rehab centers a bunch too! Now it is worth saying that those jobs are more scarce, but still. You can also be a certified Personal Trainer about halfway through the program to make some extra money.

Ultimately I agree with wildboar^, Both tracks would be just fine in preparing you for PT school, just depends on what kind of training you want to have or what kind of college experience! While an AT major may feel more prepared clinically, perhaps I feel more prepared for the classroom learning? Probably depends on the person for that part, but that's I guess how I would boil it down maybe. I would only advise that with either track make sure you're hitting all your PT pre-reqs however you have to!

Ooh yes- great point regarding prereqs! I had to spend an extra year taking Chem/Physics/Bio, whereas I know my ES friends had already taken those as part of their major. So that’s definitely something to consider. It would’ve been very difficult to squeeze in those classes in addition to my major courses and do well in all of them.

I’d also agree ES prepares people pretty well academically for PT school, moreso than AT I think.

Thanks for shedding light on what else you can do with an ES degree, I hope I didn’t offend you by saying it was more limiting than PT, clearly there are plenty of things that can be done with that degree!

 

[joannagutshall]

I was an exercise science major so I can hopefully shed a little light on that perspective!
Funny enough I actually started as an AT major and after my first semester and meeting with my counselor I made the switch to Ex Phys (sci).

From my experience and from the school I attended, if I had stayed with AT I was going to have to take several (4-6) extra classes outside my major to account for all the of the pre-reqs I was going to need to apply to PT school, which meant either taking on more credit hours every semester, staying summers, and ultimately just more $$$.

Now, On the flip side of that, as Ex Phys I did have to take a lot of "unnecessary" classes (Organic chem, biochem, Metabolism 1&2) that didn't count as PT pre-reqs and were difficult and very in depth. That is probably something you run into with either track though, TBH.

But Ex Phys is also something you can do something with after graduation aside from a health graduate program! You can become a licensed exercise physiologist and work in hospitals, clinics, companies, schools, to help their populations. They work in cardiac rehab centers a bunch too! Now it is worth saying that those jobs are more scarce, but still. You can also be a certified Personal Trainer about halfway through the program to make some extra money.

Ultimately I agree with wildboar^, Both tracks would be just fine in preparing you for PT school, just depends on what kind of training you want to have or what kind of college experience! While an AT major may feel more prepared clinically, perhaps I feel more prepared for the classroom learning? Probably depends on the person for that part, but that's I guess how I would boil it down maybe. I would only advise that with either track make sure you're hitting all your PT pre-reqs however you have to!

Thank you, this was so helpful!