What should i major in college for premed? I want to get into medical school. HELP

[redence]

Hey guys l, im just a high school junior (age 17) and I plan on becoming a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist, I would need to go through med school. However, I'm still need help on my back up plan (just in case I don't get into medical school), i was thinking about becoming a pre-Physician and so if I don't get accepted into med school. I was thinking because PA and premed have most of the same prerequisites, PA will prepare me for the MCAT, if I don't get into med school I should just become a PA. Does this work out, is it a good backup plan?

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[deleted781806]

What do you mean by a "Pre-Physician"? You are correct that PA schools generally have similar prerequisites for admissions as most med schools (although PA schools generally require a gross anatomy course if I remember right), and could serve as a potential "back-up plan". However, I believe you need to get an undergrad degree before entering into a PA school as well, so it's generally not a PA -> MD/DO pathway.

However. The road ahead of you is still very long, and you still have a couple of years before you need to settle on picking a major for undergrad. Getting into college is still on your "to-do" list, and you should mostly focus on that! You've still got plenty of time before the nitty-gritty decisions need to come about. But realistically, there is no major that is required to go to medical school, just prerequisite courses. These can be added onto just about *any* major at most colleges (as electives) and will prepare you adequately for the MCAT and fulfilling your prerequisites. So, you can really pick whatever major you want. They don't care what you do, as long as you do it well (i.e. get good grades).

Keep shooting for medical school though! It's much too early to be concerned about back-ups, you have no idea how college will go for you yet, and that's the big deciding factor. You're also five years away from taking the MCAT, which is the major hurdle to determine how "competitive" you are for getting into medical school.

Tl;dr: You can pick whatever major you want. Focus on getting into college in the meantime. You've got plenty of time ahead of you!

 

[HopefulSlav]

Never take an indirect route to your goal, unless you're Ulysses Sam Grant in the Civil War.

Just do your best in college, take MCAT, and check back in five years.

Also, enjoy high school!

 

[getdown]

You should major in something that is attractive to employers outside of medicine. Think business, economics or statistics because ultimately if it's not healthcare then your options are going to be in companies. But if you're hell bent on healthcare then probably being open to PA, nursing, RT, PT/OT is good as well.

 

[Lucca]

It doesn't matter what you major in. Major in whatever you want. What is important is that you do well and get a good GPA and a strong MCAT score.

Moving to hSDN.

 

[Mad Jack]

Major in what you want, adcoms don't care.

 

[_ Aquarius _]

Anything you want really. You could do biology, psychology, chemistry, etc. Whatever is enjoyable or you think could be useful if your plans change.

 

[getdown]

Let's be honest. Although true, majoring in "whatever you want" is kind of a dumb advice. If your plan is to go to med school, the major you choose surely doesn't matter as long as you take your prerequisite courses. But what you people tend to forget is that only a fraction of premds actually make it into medical school. What about the rest of them? Well they have to do something more realistic and get a real job. And companies and positions that pay well aren't just going to be handing out those positions to a biology/psychology/arts/english etc major. You're likely going to have some background of finance, business, economics or statistics to qualify for those positions. This being said, it's not impossible but you might need to be lucky or know someone in the inside to get these jobs. The real world is not a nice place, companies care about their bottom lines and if you can't help that goal you're pretty useless. So if you're going to pay (loans) thousands of dollars to get an education why not make it in something useful.

 

[deleted781806]

I feel like many deficits in business/finance experience can be made up for after finishing your UG career through various Master's programs, which are generally necessary for any major management positions anyways. Knowing students who are die-hard for business, it seems that if you do not end up with a solid internship during your third UG summer, you're really going to be landing on your face in the business world anyways. There's always a way to construct your major (generally, obviously there are exceptions) that can be given a business-applicable aspect to it, and further training outside of UG can further cement this if you try to make it big in business as a back-up if medical school doesn't pan out.

Telling someone who wants to apply to medical school that they should take a finance/business major instead of all other options (especially the hard sciences like biology) is a little bit of a stretch, imo.

 

[getdown]

I'm saying to major in something marketable. What exactly is your option if you don't end up in medical school with a bio major? Get a PhD? Be a biology teacher? Sure you can do something else in healthcare like PT or a respiratory therapist. And like you said if you don't end up in medicine and want to go to business then you'll end up having to take more classes in business and marketing etc. How're you paying for those classes? How're you paying for the student loans you racked up during undergrad? A majority of people take out huge loans to pay for school and you want them to take out more loans to switch careers? Listen, I'm not here to convince other people to do what I say, I'm already set. But they should at least think about these things before blundering through life racking up debts they can't pay off. A bigger disservice is to encourage people to pursue a dream knowing full well they'll be saddled with huge debts for the rest of their lives.

 

[deleted781806]

I'm saying to major in something marketable. What exactly is your option if you don't end up in medical school with a bio major? Get a PhD? Be a biology teacher? Sure you can do something else in healthcare like PT or a respiratory therapist.

There are plenty of other options for hard science majors outside of academia and they can even switch right into business with little to no worries at all, heck I know a guy who was Physics major and he'll be working in finance at BP without any additional training. There's plenty to be done with science majors and even those centering around the humanities, to say that anything that isn't strictly business-related isn't "marketable" is grossly misrepresenting the situation. Putting English, one of the most versatile and traditional generalized majors for a well-rounded education, on your list of irresponsible majors is mind-boggling.

Obviously everyone needs to be aware of the outcomes that can come after finishing UG, but it's not as bleak as you are saying.

 

[ScottTenorman54]

Putting English, one of the most versatile and traditional generalized majors for a well-rounded education, on your list of irresponsible majors is mind-boggling.

English pretty consistently makes the list for college degrees that tend to lead to underemployment. It's not really that mind-boggling. I wouldn't call it irresponsible, but I don't think anyone called it that to begin with. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend business and finance majors to all premeds, I see your point there. There's a middle ground.

The college majors most and least likely to lead to underemployment

 

[deleted781806]

English pretty consistently makes the list for college degrees that tend to lead to underemployment.

Fair enough, I definitely swung a little too hard in the opposite direction in my last post. I also really like that "Business Management & Administration" is actually higher than English, that's kind of funny. But I do really think that it is a very limited way to look at answering the question of what major should someone choose. Because if that was the case, we should all be engineers because there's such a great market for them!

Also, one note: the article you posted refers to underemployment rather than unemployment. More of a "I don't feel like I'm hitting my potential" rather than "I do not have a job because of my life choices".

 

[Lucca]

Outside of professional school (Law, Medicine, engineering), one's undergraduate institution likely has a far higher weight in determining one's employment than whatever you major in. That has been my observation at least. Studying 'business' at Directional State will never make you more employable than studying English at Harvard as long as the Harvard English major plays their cards right. Also particular majors are likely to be better employed at certain schools than others. CS majors from Berkeley/Carnegie Mellon likely do better than those from Brown even though all schools are easily in the "top tier".

I'm not saying "major in something practical should medicine not pan out" is not good advice, but I am saying that if you are certain you want to do medicine, it is always better to major in something you are interested in and likely to do well in at the best school you can get into out of high school.

 

[THOR1500]

Hey guys I'm new to sdn (sorry to hijack this thread) but I have a similar situation. So I really like mechanical engineering and I was thinking about ME with a pre med emphasis but I don't know if that would be too difficult to complete with a high GPA and solid extacurriculars. My other option would be majoring in either neuroscience or biochem, and having a lot of extra time to study abroad and maybe even take on a couple minors. Just wanted to know your thoughts on the subject.

 

[Doc_Ock]

If I could do it all over again I'd have done the "pick-your-own-classes" type of thing since I'd have to take the med school required classes no matter what and I'm gonna be doing science/healthcare/bio-ish related stuff for the rest of my life. Would have been nice to have been exposed to stuff way outside my comfort zone. Don't stress over "what major will admission committees like" because THEY DON'T CARE AT ALL. Alternately majoring in something that could land you a job in case you don't wind up matriculating out of undergrad (I know you're thinking that won't happen to you, trust me life has a funny way of throwing you curveballs) isn't a bad idea either. I was psych and lemme tell you the job market for bachelor's in psych is reeeeeeally small and honestly its that way for pretty much anything that's typical of a pre-med major (bio, chem). Obviously don't choose to be an economics major if it's insufferably boring but there is an argument to be made for keeping practicality in mind.

 

[PapaGuava]

As everyone has noted, as long as you complete the prerequisites required for most medical schools and the MCAT you will be fine. However, keep in mind that if you slip up a little in some of these courses, you can’t really raise your sGPA since you won’t be taking any courses beyond the minimum.

 

[Doc_Ock]

Commenting on what was just said, the upside is you pretty much only have to focus your effort on those science classes and not worry about a bunch of others on top of it. Remember when you apply to med school they'll use your BPCM gpa (bio/chem/physics/math) NOT THE GRADE ON YOUR TRANSCRIPT. THIS IS SOMETHING MANY UNDERGRADS DO NOT REALIZE UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE. While they will look at your overall gpa, in reality the science one is the only thing they care about (unless you have a bunch of f's in the non-science ones or something). In hindsight I had a lot of non-science honors classes that involved an enormous time commitment that I should have either blown off or skipped altogether. It's ok to slack off and get a B in english to get an A in bio. I promise.

 

[golfman7]

Major in marketable field spin wheels on pharmacy and med and went back for Engineer degree. Family member paid for final year of college and will be paying loans for long time. Got a job already with electrical contractor...