UCLA premed major (I need you advice!)

[iluvscience5]

Hello,

I am transferring to UCLA this fall as a general biology major.
After I got admitted, I started to look up info on premed majors and learned that many premed people are majoring in phy sci.

Would it be much more beneficial to have a more specific bio major than just gen bio? (at med school)
I'm not sure if I should stick to gen bio or change to something more specific.
What would be some pros and cons of gen bio and phy sci as majors? (in terms of difficulty and preparation for mcat and med school)

I know these are a lot of questions, but please give me some advice. I really don't have anyone else to ask.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

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[Skarl]

In general I'd choose a major that interests you. Other than that your main considerations are satisfying your pre reqs and your GPA. With certain majors like Psychobiology your med school pre reqs will be the same as your major pre reqs, which makes class planning easier. Another consideration is GPA. At UCLA, you take different series for math/chem depending on if you're a life science or physical science major; the physicals science series is known to be more technical. Furthermore, what upper div classes you take will vary depending on your major; some are easier some are harder.

 

[JJRousseau]

If chemistry is equivalently interesting to you, then go for that over bio simply because it's easier to grab onto the overall biological themes with the strong chemical and physical chemical background developed in a chem major. That'll help you on the mcat and Med school. Odds are, they aren't equivalently interesting to you and you should major in what interests you the most. Truly, the question of major should never be framed with "in order to apply to medical school...". There are numerous reasons not to frame major choice in this light.


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[freshprinceMD]

I'm currently a senior a UCLA. The biology major here is under the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the classes will be very evolution based (my brother is bio major). The nice thing about biology major though is that you have a lot of options to choose from for your electives.
I'm a Neuroscience student and I found a lot of the material we cover was helpful for studying for MCAT (psychology) as well as brain regions and physiology. I would imagine phyci major is even more helpful in that sense. That being said, physci, neuro, mimg, and biochem are harder than bio and psychobio. But I personally find ecology and evolution harder than Neuro and doesn't come naturally to me. Hope this helps.


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[neekzg]

Don't feel too pressured to know exactly what you want to do right away! There's so many different science and non-science majors you can pursue that would well prepare you for medical school, and some obvious tradeoffs in how difficult it is to get good grades vs. how much you learn. You can try to use the pre-reqs as a gauge for some topics that you might be interested in (LS1 --> Bio?, LS3 --> MIMG/MCDB, etc) but I urge you not to choose Bio simply because it is easy or PhySci simply because you think it will help you for med school. There are so many other majors that might be better suited for you, including those outside the sciences. I was a Human Biology and Society (B.S.) major and really loved it; there was a strong mix of public health type courses as well as flexibility to take some upper division courses in human genetics, physiology, etc.

Being in med school now, I can tell you that everyone comes in with some relative strengths based off their major but that it is LARGELY equal playing field if you've taken all the pre-reqs (and did well in them) and studied for the MCAT.