Premed Major Help?

gawwwddd that is a lot of physics....

 

My 2 cents..

I dont know how canadian schools work, but maybe they are similiar to the US schools. My personal opinion is that unless you really have a strong desire to do physics, choose a different major. (Btw, you have a very strange physics curriculum, I dont see any room for general education/elective stuff *shrug* ). Furthermore, stick with one major unless you find some strange enjoyment in being overworked or physiology just happens to come naturally to you.

With that particular curriculum, you are going to burn yourself out easy if you throw in the pre-med requirements/studying for mcats/doing extracurricular or hospital experience/and application process. Double majoring will give you few if any brownie points, and neither will the *honors* courses, so unless there is some tangible benefit for signing up with honors (i.e. early registration/better equipment or teachers) then don't do it because usually they are stocked with the brightest kids and the grading curve does not tend to be as significant. Furthermore, double majoring may actually hurt you because you will have very little general electives to round out your education (your education will be too specialized in physics/physiology). Adcoms Rule of admittance #1: Broad Education == Good; Specialized Education == not as good =P

Take it from me, I'm a double major in comp sci/math and I have umm NO social life whatsoever. Enjoy college, stick with a major where you can have some fun too because in the end, your goal is medical school and not necessarily a field in physics right?

P.S. Another good reason is that it is going to be VERY difficult to maintain a good GPA with upper level physics/math courses... and I will tell you something, math just gets tougher and tougher.

Good Luck

 

You will spend plenty of time with radiology during your medical education. I wouldn't major in physics just for that reason.

 

I did a combined honors in math and physics (in canada) and yes, you have to take all those required courses. in your second year I ended up taking first semester

1) Diff Eqns I
2) Organic I +Lab
3) Modern Physics
4) Physics electronics lab (3 credits spread out over two semesters)
5) French
6) Applied Linear Algebra

If you thought that was tough, take a look at your junior year:

First semester
1) E+M I
2) Quantum mechanics I
3) Complex Variables I
4) Electronics lab
5) Biochem I
6) Humanities elective

Second semester
1) E+M II
2) QM 2
3) Complex Variables II
4) Biochem II
5) Particle Physics

Senior year doesn't get any easier:

First semester:
1) Real Analysis I
2) Abstract Algebra
3) Advanced PDEs
4) Thesis

Second semester:
1) Real Analysis II
2) Calculus of Variations
3) Stat mech
4) Green's Functions
5) Optics
6) Thesis

So yeah, as you can see, the type of program you seek to be doing isn't easy, but it can be done. Instead of taking humanities, you just concentrate on taking physics and physiology courses, in your case. An honors degree doesn't do much for you if you don't have the grades to back it up though, so don't think taking these courses will "impress" adcoms.

 

WOW!!! And I thought my courseload was tough!!!!

 

I went to UBC, and if I had to do it all over again I woulda probably just done an honors math and taken a few of the interesting physics courses, and more humanities. I really regret not having taken more history, french, philosophy, etc. If you are truly into physics, then do it. I thought I was, I started out in honors physics, then migrated more toward math because upper division physics really made me want to vomit (all you end up doing is making approximations. There's very little new math involved). I really liked math, and even though the workload was tough, I was still able to join intramurals, volunteer, and hold a steady part-time job, and keep sane. keep in mind also, that in physics and math, you will be doing lots of problem sets. And as you go higher up some of these problem sets will literally take hours and hours to do. But the thing is, with m+p, once you understand the principles, and keep up with things (by doing problem sets) you will not need to study a lot, and that's what I really liked about it. I knew of a few other premeds/predents in m+p... the one predent is in dental school now, and of the two other premeds I knew, one is in med school and the other decided to do an MS in medical physics. Plus I have found that the skills you gain as a physicist/mathematician, although won't help you directly in med school, will help you look at things in a different way and you tend to find shortcuts (i.e., patterns) in memorizing trivial facts.

 

Some people in my program were even crazier than me. My best friend in college took 7 full courses (all m+P) in his jr year each semester... killed his GPA, but he was going into grad school, so grades don't matter all that much (he's got the research to back himself up). I think the key is not to doubt yourself. It seems like you really like physics and math, and while most people don't, p+m can be really enjoyable (yes you heard that right) if you are the "math type," you know, the one who always found math easy, even though other people were having trouble with it. I always found math and physics easier than bio (which I would have to spend hours upon hours reading, and then memorizing as much you can and spewing things back out), so I knew majoring in math and physics would work out better for me GPA wise. And it did, I got B's in my bio courses (with the exception of genetics, a problem solving type course, and biochem, which I really liked b/c it was very logical, believe or not), and A's in all my math and physics courses. You're right in that it sounds impressive and if you really like math and/or physics don't be afraid to delve into it.

Oh, and radiology really has nothing to do with physics. If you want to do real physics in medicine, try radiation oncology or nuclear med.