To what extent are "fun" classes looked down upon?

[Ihave Nonamè]

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I am interested in taking a couple classes that are not related to my major and are not medical school prereqs.

I'm looking into taking a Chinese language class (already fulfilled my GE language requirement some time ago with French) and a personal financial management class. To add to this, when I was in community college I took several PE classes (nearly every quarter) and a couple music classes for fun.

I believe I once heard somewhere that this is generally looked down upon. What do you think?

 

[BJoverTrapper]

This is our last chance to try and learn new things outside of medicine and adcoms don’t won’t a robot that only cares about medicine. Your app is only strengthened by learning another language and personal finance should be a pre req in and of itself. No one should be looking down on you for this!

 

[deleted1040417]

I think another good question with this would be:

What would you say is the minimum amount of science we should consistently be enrolled in? Is one science course too little? 5 credits?

 

[Doctor-S]

I am interested in taking a couple classes that are not related to my major and are not medical school prereqs.

I'm looking into taking a Chinese language class (already fulfilled my GE language requirement some time ago with French) and a personal financial management class. To add to this, when I was in community college I took several PE classes (nearly every quarter) and a couple music classes for fun.

I believe I once heard somewhere that this is generally looked down upon. What do you think?

If your application for medical school is competitive, have fun with any class, or with any language, or whatever subject sounds fun to you.

Heck, I took p-chem as an elective just for fun, and no one looked down on me!

 

[lanzhou_lamian]

Beyond GEs and major requirements, most undergrads allow for ~1/3 of classes to be electives. You should use these electives to study things that are interesting to you, whether they have to do with medicine or not. At the end of the day, everyone that's applying to med school is going to have the pre-reqs and likely did decently well in them. Adcomms want to see real people, not just pre-med automatons, and the electives you choose to take give an additional data point regarding your personal interests.

I think another good question with this would be:

What would you say is the minimum amount of science we should consistently be enrolled in? Is one science course too little? 5 credits?

You should take as many as you need to be able to finish the pre-reqs on time. A few upper level bio courses are also generally encouraged (A&P, microbiology, etc.). I probably averaged 2 sciences courses a semester plus a lab during my undergrad as a bio major pre-med, but there were some where I only had one.

 

[deleted1005514]

Adcoms are not sitting in offices looking down their noses at transcripts saying, “This one took underwater basket weaving and martial arts. He must not be serious about becoming a doctor because he has non-science courses on his transcript. Reject!”

As long as your gpa is good and balanced (not Cs in sciences and As in electives), I doubt they care what extra classes you took.

It’s ok for you to be a real person and not a pre-med automaton. Have interests and hobbies!

 

[Rachapkis]

As long as you fulfill the prerequisites and do well, "fun" classes will not harm you. They may even make you seem well-rounded and interesting. I would not worry one iota about this issue.

 

[Talldoctor96]

I mean just to be brutally honest you think a reader is gonna sit down and look at every single class you ever took and think hmmm this seems too fun? These readers have to read your PS, LOR, Activies, Most meaningful, secondaries, look at your stats. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

 

[Goro]

I am interested in taking a couple classes that are not related to my major and are not medical school prereqs.

I'm looking into taking a Chinese language class (already fulfilled my GE language requirement some time ago with French) and a personal financial management class. To add to this, when I was in community college I took several PE classes (nearly every quarter) and a couple music classes for fun.

I believe I once heard somewhere that this is generally looked down upon. What do you think?

You heard wrong.

The one thing Adcoms do not want are 4.0 automatons.

 

[Talldoctor96]

Actually readers will go thru the transcript class by class, but certainly not decide if the class was too easy. In fact, having something atypical or unusual may be noticed and indicate the candidate has some depth. I have certainly seen applications in the opposite vein where every class and activity was hardcore academic in nature. When you ask the candidate what fun he had in college, you could get the answer the late friday night pizza party in the lab where he worked. Well not really a party we were just working late and ordered a pizza (yes true story)

Sure thats more what I meant. Agreed, and to be honest — my transcript at my undergrad abreviated the names of classes and I feel like it would be hard for people to know what some of them were anyway lolol

 

[LizzyM]

Only once in 20+ years of reviewing transcripts have I done one of these and that was for someone who took Golf, Wine tasting and Human Sexuality all in the same term.

 

[Talldoctor96]

Only once in 20+ years of reviewing transcripts have I done one of these and that was for someone who took Golf, Wine tasting and Human Sexuality all in the same term.

Sounds pretty great to be honest. Where do I sign up?

 

[Goro]

Only once in 20+ years of reviewing transcripts have I done one of these and that was for someone who took Golf, Wine tasting and Human Sexuality all in the same term.

That was definitely someone meant to be a doctor!!!!

 

[Ihave Nonamè]

I would like to know where you believe you heard this?

It may have been on here quite some time ago...The idea was that the student ran the risk of appearing unfocused or as though they didn't know what they wanted to do in life/were just experimenting.

 

[deleted1005514]

It may have been on here quite some time ago...The idea was that the student ran the risk of appearing unfocused or as though they didn't know what they wanted to do in life/were just experimenting.

That doesn’t make sense though, because people with non-science degrees get into medical school every year.

 

[LizzyM]

I am interested in taking a couple classes that are not related to my major and are not medical school prereqs.

I'm looking into taking a Chinese language class (already fulfilled my GE language requirement some time ago with French) and a personal financial management class. To add to this, when I was in community college I took several PE classes (nearly every quarter) and a couple music classes for fun.

I believe I once heard somewhere that this is generally looked down upon. What do you think?

I think that the bigger questions would be: what is your GPA? Are you a naive speaker of Chinese? How are these courses rated in RateMyProfessor? If you are looking for easy As to prop up, or to protect, the GPA then that will be looked down upon. Don't take a bunch of MickeyMouse courses to boost the GPA. We can see through that. If these are rigorous courses that will teach you something about the world, or about yourself, then go for it.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

Only once in 20+ years of reviewing transcripts have I done one of these and that was for someone who took Golf, Wine tasting and Human Sexuality all in the same term.

May be they read too much about interviewers asking about what they do for fun and wants to have in-depth knowlege 🙂

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Heck, I took p-chem as an elective just for fun, and no one looked down on me!

They might have questioned your sanity and definition of fun

 

[CaptainZeki]

I am interested in taking a couple classes that are not related to my major and are not medical school prereqs.

I'm looking into taking a Chinese language class (already fulfilled my GE language requirement some time ago with French) and a personal financial management class. To add to this, when I was in community college I took several PE classes (nearly every quarter) and a couple music classes for fun.

I believe I once heard somewhere that this is generally looked down upon. What do you think?

take them like others have said! I took a scuba diving class, fell in love with it and continued it years later (eventually became an advanced diver). Two different interviewers asked about it because they also are scuba divers and were really interested in where I dove.

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

A sampling of classes from my transcript:

- Playwork
- A bunch of intro ballet and modern dance classes
- Dance Composition and Choreography
- Intro to Theater making
- German Biopolitics and Consequences
- Mad Dogs, Vampires, and Zombie Ants (This one was a senior bio seminar, to be fair)
- Drugs, Culture, and Society

A couple of these were in my (not hard science) major, but most of them were just for fun. I got into med school just fine, and all of these classes are much more interesting to talk about (and left a more lasting impression) than any of my general science classes. I'm all for fun classes if you're otherwise meeting the necessary requirements.