General Where should I attend as well as a few other questions.

[gyngyn]

Hello,

I’m currently a community college student who is a Computer Science major that recently turned towards medicine. I don’t know if this matters, but my sGPA and cGPA are around 3.9 and I’ve been attending CC for about 4 years. I do have three W’s on my transcript from the first few years, but it’s been all uphill from there on. I’ve changed majors three times now. I was about to pull the trigger this past cycle and transfer to a UC for CS, but I decided to change paths once again (for sure now). I will now be attending CC for my fifth year to complete my prerequisites. Now that I’ve given some background, here are my questions:

1. Should I finish as much science courses as I can at my CC before I transfer? How will the majority of medical schools see that? I wanted to save my money and start doing non clinical and clinical volunteering here where I have as much time as I can dedicate. I feel like after I transfer and take upper division courses, I’ll be swamped as well as doing research. Also, the “only” classes I can take are the science courses such as bio and ochem to even get passed the minimum unit for full time student.

2. Does the school name matter? I was looking to attend a small private school in California that’s not very well known to my understanding (CLU), but it’s close to home and I will only pay 20% of the tuition & living cost since my dad is faculty there. They boast on their website that students have attended top medical schools, but I’m not sure if I should gamble all in on that. The other option would be a UC such as UCLA, UCB, UCSD, etc. Even USC, although I’m afraid of the price I have to pay for that one.

3. Should I stay CS? I really enjoy CS, but I don’t think I’ll be able to maintain my GPA unfortunately. If I transfer, it’ll go downhill I’m sure when combined with other premed duties. I ask myself this question everyday. The one response I always give to myself is what if I don’t get into medical school? I’ll have a CS degree at least. However, I’d be tipping the scales of chance over to CS more against the medical school. Any input to this question would greatly be appreciated, I’m looking for no specific responses.

1. Take as many science classes as you can get A's in while you are at CC.
2. Cal Lutheran only had 19 applicants to medical school last year. Their mean MCAT was 500.4, mean gpa was 3.49... If you get a fabulous scholarship to CLU and believe that you will do much better than their average applicant, it could still be a good choice.
The UC's are arguably the finest public universities in the nation.
3.Your major doesn't much matter to us, it should matter to you!

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[lord999]

The general advice given is that you should always pick a major that you can work in if you do not make it into medicine, and Comp Sci is one that definitely can find jobs. For Comp Sci, as well as the pre-Med classes, you also should ensure that Finite Mathematics is a class you take lateral to your standard mathematics classes (it is absolutely required for certain CS upper division classes), and preferably a rigorous class in Algorithms beyond the CLRS book (the CLRS Big White book is mandatory in most programs, but advanced is not). You'll find that those analysis skills translate well into the health care profession.

I would save money and attend CLU, medical school is going to be fairly taxing, and you'll get some better attention than at the UC schools. However, you have to be self-directed in terms of getting the education you are paying for in either respect.