Why did you choose your major/make a case for your major!

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Why did you choose your college major?

  • Pre-existing interest of mine

    Votes: 184 60.7%

  • Took courses and liked it a lot

    Votes: 112 37.0%

  • Good at the subject material

    Votes: 104 34.3%

  • Prepares me for the MCAT/med school

    Votes: 94 31.0%

  • Didn't like/gave up on my first choice of major (current major was my back-up)

    Votes: 18 5.9%

  • Fits with my schedule/goals

    Votes: 54 17.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 19 6.3%
  • Total voters
    303
Dandine said:
Welcome to 2018! For the newbies: see first post.
Click to expand...

Funny enough, I didn't choose my major because I thought it would prepare me for the MCAT; however, despite not really being a tested subject on the MCAT, the skills I learned in my major courses helped me immensely on the MCAT.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Funny enough, I didn't choose my major because I thought it would prepare me for the MCAT; however, despite not really being a tested subject on the MCAT, the skills I learned in my major courses helped me immensely on the MCAT.
Click to expand...

And the skills built towards the MCAT are definitely applicable to medical school since medical school testing is primarily application of knowledge plus critical thinking in novel situations. So what you said resonates a lot!
 
Chemistry because it helped me prepare for the DAT, and gave me se fun challeges. Gives me the tools necessary to succeed in dental school!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using SDN mobile
 
I earned my degree in Environmental Health Science. It's a unique major and relatively interesting. You study the effects of air, water, and land pollution and the unique ways to combat these issues (like bioremediation). In hindsight, I would be hard pressed to pick another major because I feel like this degree helps me stand out. However, my favorite classes have been organic chemistry, biochemistry, and genetics so if I could go back I would consider those majors.

If there was a major for military history and tactics that would be cool too.
 
It's that time of the year again. Happy Friday all!!! :hardy:

(See post 1 for context and prompt)
 
Other - I chose my major (biology with a Biotech option) because
1) the classes overlapped nicely with prereqs
2) It gave me something academic to do during ‘a gap year’ so I didn’t have to go back to work
3) A research year sounded fun
4) It was a preexisting interest of mine while I was in high school
5) It gives me a backup plan. What do you do with a general bio degree? Nothin.
 
I was a political science major. I've always liked politics and the classes were super interesting. I didn't decide until later that I wanted to pursue medicine, but there's actually a lot of overlap (not in terms of classes, though). I also was able to study abroad, which was the best part of college! I was immediately employable after graduation and have something to fall back on in case this doesn't work out (hopefully I don't need to worry about that).

My advice for college students - study what you want! You can be ANY major and still take the pre-reqs in college (or after). College is a time for self-discovery. Use that time to figure out who you are and what you want.
 
I really enjoyed biology and chemistry in high school so when I had the opportunity to move to the US for college I wondered if there was a major/field that combined both. Luckily for me my undergrad school offered a major in Biochemistry and I didn't think twice about do it. I was never pre-med (more pre-gradschool, is that even a thing,haha), so I enrolled in the major because I utterly enjoyed it. Once I got to take actual biochemistry classes I was in a world of joy. My undergrad also offered LOTS of lab classes (very well taught) so I got the opportunity to delve into cell bio, genetics, biochem, o chem, gen chem and microbiology labs. My major also required me to write a thesis during my senior year, which fortunately was an enjoyable experience since I had been working in the same lab for 3 and a half years by the time I had to do this. Honestly I had an amazing time in undergrad and a big part of that was choosing the right major for me, which was Biochemistry.

Now that I am preparing for the MCAT that biochemistry background comes in very handy! B/B was a breeze to work through and a great part of C/P as well. If only my actual test had actually had some biochem on C/P and not physics/ochem....
 
Public health! I thought it was a great supplement to the prereq science courses. You learn a lot about study designs and general population health that gives a good overview of research and medicine.
 
Biology because my undergrad didn’t offer much in the way of pre-med degrees, and after sitting through freshman humanities courses I knew I didn’t ever want to do those again. I have a minor in chemistry because it took one extra biochem class to achieve it, and why not? All my excess electives are in psych.

I also did a graduate degree in biology, as a backup plan for med school, so I could teach at the college level if I needed to. It was also a free degree, paid for by the university’s GA program. It prepared me for medical school more than anything else.
 
A field in the sciences which I think has an infinite amount of things to study and delve into.
I just went with my own curiosity!
 
Engrailed said:
A field in the sciences which I think has an infinite amount of things to study and delve into.
I just went with my own curiosity!
Click to expand...
Memelord entering interviewer mode now:

"Well, you know what they say - curiosity killed the cat. Are you prepared for the challenges medicine presents beyond the intellectual ones?"
 
MemeLord said:
Memelord entering interviewer mode now:

"Well, you know what they say - curiosity killed the cat. Are you prepared for the challenges medicine presents beyond the intellectual ones?"
Click to expand...

Hahah, well..

That's a secret Ill never tell.
Xoxo, Engrailed
 
I started as a biology major because it offered all of the prerequisite courses for medical school. Senior year, I decided to change to mathematics because I was concerned about not getting into medical school with my 3.6 GPA and wanted a backup plan. I liked the alternatives that a math major gave me (graduate school in either biomedical or mechanical engineering) better than those I'd get from a bio degree. It didn't hurt that I usually performed better in math classes than bio classes in undergrad. The switch was good to me; my senior year I had a 3.8 - and I got into medical school!
 
Started with biomedical sciences and then added on philosophy because philosophy IS AWESOME. Such a breath of fresh air to escape the hard sciences and dive into a totally new way of thinking, problem solving, and communicating. Helps you connect and find common ground with people you never thought were similar to you. Also incredibly helpful with organizing thoughts into a concise, articulate argument. So good for CARS and interviews!

Plus lets not forget that once you graduate with a degree in philosophy you can forever refer to yourself as a philosopher (bring this out for an instant win all arguments card). 😆
 
Started college as computer science and I'm coming out as a glorified computation statistics major. Turns out writing proofs all day and planning out solutions to software engineering projects helped a ton with training critical thinking (*cough* CARS).

It was a PITA to take premed courses and do premed extracurriculars, but my school is very flexible with schedule design (yay no general education!). Thought about double majoring in biochemistry, but I was too lazy to take the extra classes required.

Doing CS really opened up a lot of possibilities in computational research (and apparently professors are always struggling to fill their computational labs!) Also, provides some interesting things to talk about in interviews and cool career paths involving its intersection with medicine.
 
Neuroscience with Spanish minor! I wanted to do something more interesting to me than just a biology degree (not that there is anything wrong with a bio degree). I was planning on doing Biochemistry, but found the Neuroscience major at my school and instantly felt drawn to do it. I never changed majors after that or wished I had done something different. Definitely major in something you are passionate about and the grades will come.
 
TheBoranIdentity said:
Neuroscience with Spanish minor! I wanted to do something more interesting to me than just a biology degree (not that there is anything wrong with a bio degree). I was planning on doing Biochemistry, but found the Neuroscience major at my school and instantly felt drawn to do it. I never changed majors after that or wished I had done something different. Definitely major in something you are passionate about and the grades will come.
Click to expand...

Hello! I'm currently a neuroscience major as well! Have any of your psychology classes counted into your BCPM when applying for medical school? Thank you!!
 
I have a double major in biology and theology. I absolutely love having this combination and I think the latter will prepare me very well for being a physician, if I end up going that route, just in terms of the way it asks me to consider big questions about people, life, morality, and my purpose. I also love people's reactions when I tell them that I am devoted to studying both science and religion. 🙂
 
Hi all, bumping for any newbies or people on SDN who haven't seen this before. Read post #1 for context. Enjoy!
 
Became weirdly obsessed with neuro as a 10th grader, majored in neurobiology. Easy way to knock out prereqs, but left the door open to PhD if that was the right path for me (it wasn’t).
 
Piano Performance and Biochemistry.

The former was a sensible choice, the latter... hmm... not so much. Either of these would be sensible, but in combination ate up more time than it was worth. Wouldn't recommend it.
 
Last edited:
Applied Physics (Life Science Track)
I planned on being a physics major because I enjoyed the subject. I selected track because it included all of the standard pre-med prereqs and many of the common 'strongly recommended' courses as required-required-for majors class. Plus, free minor in chem or math. My advisor later me they created the track to attract pre-med students to the physics dept.
 
ontiquicuo said:
Applied Physics (Life Science Track)
I planned on being a physics major because I enjoyed the subject. I selected track because it included all of the standard pre-med prereqs and many of the common 'strongly recommended' courses as required-required-for majors class. Plus, free minor in chem or math. My advisor later me they created the track to attract pre-med students to the physics dept.
Click to expand...

How many semesters of calculus based physics did the Life Sciences Track in Physics at your school require?
 
MyOdyssey said:
How many semesters of calculus based physics did the Life Sciences Track in Physics at your school require?
Click to expand...

Required
  • 2 semesters of general physics (calc based)
  • 1 semester of modern physics (some calc but mostly algebra)
  • 1 semester of biological physics (book and lectures used calc to explain topics, but there wasn't much in the work)
Electives (2 require, I took)
  • 1 semester of thermodynamics (lots of calc)
  • 1 semester of electromagnetism (lots of calc)
There other options for electives. I think the total amount of calc would have been about the same in any combo.
 
I chose biochemistry because it overlapped the most with the pre-medical classes and the classes I had already taken by the time I declared a major. I had already spent a lot of time and money in school switching from a liberal arts triple major to a pre-pharmacy major with no intention of getting a Bachelors so I tried to take a straight line path to graduation by the time I switched to premedical. With all the major switching and pre-req collection I ended up graduating with about 160 credits.

If I could do things over, knowing that I wanted to go to medical school as a freshman, I would have majored in biology and minored in English or philosophy. My GPA would be higher, I still would have hit the prereqs and I probably would have had a premed network. Most biochemistry major had their eyes on research or immediate post-graduate employment.
 
Majored in Chemistry. In hindsight, I would've done Biochem with a minor in History (I took a decent number of courses in the discipline, and wish I had room in my schedule for more)
 
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