Should I switch honors programs for the BS degree?

[Aiyaaaaah]

Hi, I'm a rising sophomore at UT Austin and I recently got the offer to switch one of my honors programs in my science degree (Chemistry). The current honors program that I'm in (Polymathic) is heavily focused on interdisciplinary learning and you basically create an interdisciplinary senior thesis at the cost of doing a BSA instead of a BS degree. However, I was thinking about switching to another program (Dean's), which is a lot more research heavy and makes you do a BS degree. Dean's is also a lot more well-funded and (apparently) has more name recognition in grad/med school admissions. My other major is in the humanities (that also requires you to do an interdisciplinary thesis).

Is there any significant benefit to switching in this case, particularly for MD or MD/PhD programs? The people/professors I've talked to so far told me to switch, but I wanted to see if there were any other points that I should consider.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

What do your prehealth advisors say? How about your peers in either honors program? If the folks close to campus encourage you to switch, I don't think any of us who have no connection to the university can tell you otherwise. Just do whatever you can to leverage the resources your university offers.

 

[wysdoc]

I'm going to give you a few things to consider because I am pretty familiar with your university.

Those specific majors at UT Austin might be very well known to UT Austin folks, but the differences and variances between them are not particularly clear to outsiders - by this I mean specifically the medical school admission people.
Being in one of the Honors tracks like Deans Honors or Health Science Scholars might give you certain perks like smaller classes or priority in registering for courses you need.
Since some of your professors suggested the switch, why do you think they brought it up to you? I'm thinking maybe it's hard to get all the pre-med prerequisites done while meeting the other benchmarks for the polymathic scholars track?
Do you have to be nominated for one of these by a faculty member?

Last of all, in your parent's or grandparent's generation it was felt to be more impressive to have a double major. Med school admissions deans don't care about that, they want you to show mastery in whatever major you choose. Your current path sounds like a lot of extra work (2 senior theses?) It might be better to have just one major (Chemistry if that's what interests you) and to take the humanities courses that interest you instead of taking a large set of them to meet a requirement for a double major.

 

[Aiyaaaaah]

I'm going to give you a few things to consider because I am pretty familiar with your university.

Those specific majors at UT Austin might be very well known to UT Austin folks, but the differences and variances between them are not particularly clear to outsiders - by this I mean specifically the medical school admission people.
Being in one of the Honors tracks like Deans Honors or Health Science Scholars might give you certain perks like smaller classes or priority in registering for courses you need.
Since some of your professors suggested the switch, why do you think they brought it up to you? I'm thinking maybe it's hard to get all the pre-med prerequisites done while meeting the other benchmarks for the polymathic scholars track?
Do you have to be nominated for one of these by a faculty member?

Last of all, in your parent's or grandparent's generation it was felt to be more impressive to have a double major. Med school admissions deans don't care about that, they want you to show mastery in whatever major you choose. Your current path sounds like a lot of extra work (2 senior theses?) It might be better to have just one major (Chemistry if that's what interests you) and to take the humanities courses that interest you instead of taking a large set of them to meet a requirement for a double major.

Hi, thank you for responding! I can't drop my other major because I received a pretty big scholarship from being in it, but I do know that I can technically use the same senior thesis to fulfill both my CNS honors requirement and the other major's requirement. You don't have to be nominated by faculty members, I was able to just email the director and was approved to switch over if I wanted.

The main professor that I asked brought up the name recognition for the Deans track, and we mainly talked about the benefits of doing a BS/research-heavy honors for PhD admissions. I think doing Deans technically helps with the 'mastery in your major' that you talked about, since I'll have to do more upper-div chem classes/honors courses to fulfill that degree requirement vs. taking more interdisciplinary courses that aren't necessarily STEM-related for polymath.

 

[Aiyaaaaah]

What do your prehealth advisors say? How about your peers in either honors program? If the folks close to campus encourage you to switch, I don't think any of us who have no connection to the university can tell you otherwise. Just do whatever you can to leverage the resources your university offers.

I wasn't able to meet with any prehealth advisors in time before the semester ended, and the people I've asked from either honors program all vouched for their own honors. Although, I did ask people who weren't in CNS honors and they tended to lean towards Deans. I'll keep in mind the last point you made, thank you for responding!