Sophomore CS Major

[YourRealName]

Hi there,

I feel that I'm in a slightly unusual position for a potential med-school applicant. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on my situation.

I'm about to start my sophomore year at a small engineering school as a Computer Science major. I haven't had any medically related extra-curricular experience yet (shadowing, research, etc.). I would say my most "impressive" EC to date would be a summer IT internship I just completed (at a large IT company involved in healthcare - N.B., "healthcare IT" sounds nice, but it was almost 100% about IT).

• As a CS major I plan on picking up med school requirements as electives. I understand that a year of Physics, a year of Biology, a year of General Chemistry and a year of Organic Chemistry is "standard" - however, are there any "unofficially required" classes that I need to take to be a serious applicant?
• I enjoy the CS curriculum and appreciate the fact that it opens up great job opportunities if I don't go to med school. Will this unusual major choice be a pro or a con to admissions committees?
• Also, as a technical major I won't have as much free time for ECs - will the comparative difficulty of the major help make up for this?
• The stories most applicants tell here seem to involve undergrad research - is that even possible for a CS major? What classes would I need to take to get into research?
• Will non-medical internships (like the IT one I completed this summer) interest admissions committees?
• The open question: If you were me, what would you do the next three years to make yourself attractive to med schools?

I realize that I look a lot more like a future IT employee than a pre-med student right now and that could reflect a lack of commitment on my part. The sooner I get medical exposure, the sooner I will know how committed I am, so I appreciate your advice.

Thanks in advance.

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[Whatyousay]

1. As a CS major I plan on picking up med school requirements as electives. I understand that a year of Physics, a year of Biology, a year of General Chemistry and a year of Organic Chemistry is "standard" - however, are there any "unofficially required" classes that I need to take to be a serious applicant?
2. I enjoy the CS curriculum and appreciate the fact that it opens up great job opportunities if I don't go to med school. Will this unusual major choice be a pro or a con to admissions committees?
3. Also, as a technical major I won't have as much free time for ECs - will the comparative difficulty of the major help make up for this?
4. The stories most applicants tell here seem to involve undergrad research - is that even possible for a CS major? What classes would I need to take to get into research?
5. Will non-medical internships (like the IT one I completed this summer) interest admissions committees?
6. The open question: If you were me, what would you do the next three years to make yourself attractive to med schools?

1. I see more schools moving towards including biochem as a requirement (although at this point, biochem is merely a "recommended" class). Calculus / Statistics are requirements at some schools (although I assume that as a CS major, you've taken the equivalent of those courses). That being said, it's school dependent. If a school only requires the basic pre-reqs, you'll only need the basic pre-reqs.

2. Your major probably won't negatively or positively affect your application. Grades come before anything else. Your actual degree plan is probably just useful as a talking point in interviews / secondaries.

3. Having a technical major is not an excuse for not having ECs.

4. CS should offer plenty of research opportunities (although not necessarily wet lab research). The skills in CS are useful for things like computational biology, modeling complex systems, etc.

5. Sure. Don't use that as a substitute for clinical experience, however.

6. Clinical experience (i.e. hospital volunteering), non-clinical volunteering, research (maybe go outside of your comfort zone - just because you're a CS major does not necessarily preclude you from participating in biology research), teaching, leadership in clubs/organizations that interest you.

 

[patineurMD]

1) You need to have at least a year of English, and calculus and stats are always a bonus. They're going to cram all medical knowledge you need into your head in med school, so it's not like if you don't take biochem you're going to be at all behind.

2) Unusual shmunusual. It doesn't really matter as long as you get the prereqs and maintain a high GPA. Some people will argue one way or the other but the way I see it, if you're happy doing CS, you're happy doing CS.

3) It depends on what you mean by difficult. I don't know much about computer science so I can't really speak to this one, but if it's too much for you to go to class and get some good EC's, you probably want to be careful about your time management.

4) Talk to your bio professors and see if they have any advice to offer; I have a friend in computer science who is writing programs for a biology lab and it seems really really cool to my non-computery brain.

5) Yes.

6) Volunteer in both medical and non-medical settings. Hospitals are good, but free clinics are better since you'll have a lot more responsibility. Shadowing is as important as taking the prereq courses, so start putting feelers out as to who will let you follow them around. Keep making good grades, pay excellent attention in your prereq courses as they will come back to haunt you on the MCAT, and find at least 1-2 ECs you can participate strongly in for the next couple of years to show commitment.

I actually have an uncle who did CS in college and he was able to bank enough cash in two years to buy a house and put himself through med school debt free, so what you're doing can definitely be very beneficial.