Here’s the thing. Your daughter is a high-achieving student, so she is both smart and self-disciplined. Her interests, as is typical of a 17 year old, are evolving. Unless she is applying to certain specific things (such as engineering, or some CS programs), she does not have to decide this for at least a year or two.
So, let her go to college, take advanced science courses, do some serious internships, and learn more about these options. She does not have to have a linear career path laid out before she starts university. Let her follow her own path.
Trust your 17 years of parenting. But mostly, trust her.
@psanieg: If she is interested in pursing Environmental Policy vs. Environmental Science, then there are more job opportunities post undergrad but Graduate might be a necessity also.
My older son graduated from UC Davis 2 years ago as an Environmental Science and Management major but was not really interested in pursing policy. He instead enjoyed being in the outdoors so jobs in this area of Environmental Science are Seasonal and Temporary until you work your way up the ladder with relevant experience. He has moved 6 times in the last 2 years to purse what he loves and got paid minimum wage with no benefits.
Working for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife this past year, helped him realize that private Environmental consulting firms are where the better paying jobs are right now. He is now working as an Environmental Biologist for a Environmental consulting firm with much better pay and benefits.
It really depends upon what your D is interested in pursuing if Medical school is not a viable option. As stated by many posters, there are many Healthcare related fields with better job prospects that would be available to her.
I also agree with several of the posters that you should let her pursue her interests. They all figure it out in the end believe or not.
Agree with many of the earlier posts in that your daughter does not need to know her major going in, unless she is specifically applying to a college within a university for business, engineering, etc.
Many many students change their majors once they start school. She should major in what she’s interested in and enjoys so that she can get a high GPA in case she decides to apply to med school.
Once she gets to college her advisor can help her narrow down other majors that would have good career prospects should she decide against med school, or not get accepted.
It would be important for her to ask prospective colleges how easy/difficult it is to change majors once she declares one.
Based on several of the posts, it looks like OP and daughter maybe targeting some UC schools. Biological Sciences is impacted/selective/capped at many of the UC campuses, so it is in her best interests to apply to a more selective major as a Freshman applicant and she can always switch out to a less selective major later.
UCSD has been mentioned and here is a list of capped majors. Biological Sciences includes General Biology, Human Biology, Neuobiology etc…
Majors with capped status – for all students:
Biological Sciences-all majors
Data Science
Mathematics
Physics
Public Health
Jacobs School of Engineering – all majors
5 or 6 years back one of my contact’s D went to UCSD with Biology major. After attending some college event (like internship or campus recruitment) and was surprised by the lack of demand for biology versus engg/computer related). Year before when she applied, at that time when her parents told to choose some major with plan B, she did not understand and did not listen. But after attending the college event, the moment she self realized, she switched to Bioinformatics. After attending internship during summer, her plan for MD disappeared. Today she is working either at Amazon or Microsoft.
Since you mentioned your daughter looking for a short cut, and also high GPA/Scores, is she planning to apply for any BS/MD programs?
Reality, there is no short cut in medical career. It is a very long and stressful education and career. In 5-6 years some of her friends will be driving Tesla and hanging out free of exams, but she will be studying. As long as she is aware then it is fine.
I would rather worry about where she is going to college first in order to see what majors are available. I am also a firm believer in that technology will change the future of medicine in the next 10 years. Math, physics, data analytics, engineering, robotics will change everything. There is no “marine” in any of them.
Someone bright enough to be a national merit semifinalist should never worry about playing it safe.
“What are the prospects in real world ? I never met any one who is environmental scientist.”
I happened to run into an environmental scientist during the short period that one daughter was officially an environmental science major.
His job involved working for the state and verifying that certain major projects were complying with environmental laws. His claim was that there were quite a few jobs for people with environmental science degrees. Most of them involving working for companies to make sure that they comply with the applicable laws. Fewer of the jobs involves working for government.
It is very common for students to change their major after arriving at university. Both of my daughters have done this. At this point I would not worry about it.
Thank you all for the response. Currently, she is interested in Ecology, Behavior and Evolution (Interdisciplinary program between Environmental systems and Biology).
I probably should not have said short cut. She wants to take what she likes to get high GPA and do not want to be another biology majors. This way she feels she has better chances.
She is predicted to be valedictorian to her school, on her high school badminton team and has few internships / research project in the marine biology / STEM to her credit.
Medical schools are fairly nonspecific about what to major in, as long as you have strong grades and meet the prerequisites. I knew a doctor that got into medical school with an English degree. It’s just that biology is the safest major since medical schools can have slightly different prerequisite requirements.
Medical schools get bored of seeing standard-issue bio/chem majors. When they see someone with a business or computer science degree, it gets their attention. In fact, Nursing is a great major that’s ALWAYS passed over. Not only does it mostly or entirely meet med school prerequisites, it’s employable too. If you don’t get in to medical school right away, you have a job AND you have hands-on medical experience, which would be a huge advantage for medical school the following year.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this @coolguy40. Most of the people who are doing the interviewing for admission (doctors, med students, med school faculty) were biology majors themselves. They don’t find bio majors boring and their curiosity isn’t universally piqued by unusual majors. An applicant’s major isn’t even really considered at all so long as the applicant has all the pre-reqs covered.
BTW, Interviewers often don’t know an applicant’s major–a significant number of medical schools (maybe even the majority) do “blind interviews” or “closed file interviews” to help minimize bias.
Nursing as pre-med major has a few issues.
At some colleges, the science classes for nursing majors are on a separate track–sciences for the allied heath sciences… Sciences taught on this track are not the same as the science courses offered to science majors. (The courses often have different emphases and content than sciences for the science major even if they use the same text book and have the same title.) Science classes for the allied health sciences aren’t acceptable to medical schools and cannot be used to fulfill admission requirements.
Med schools are reluctant to poach students from other greatly needed medical professions–and that includes nursing. While med schools are open to accepting nurses into their programs, they’re extremely reluctant to take newly graduated nurses who lack any real world experience in their profession. Adcomms want nurses to be able clearly articulate “why medicine” and “why not nursing.” It’s tough to do the latter without actually having worked as nurse for a few years.
(And nursing programs really don’t want wannabe doctors who are going to leave the profession before they ever even start filling seats in their program either. Let it be known that nursing is your fall-back position and you may be asked to leave the program.)
Even nurses are expected to have clinical experience that is separate from their work experience because the role of the nurse and the physician are significantly different on any medical team. Working as a nurse in no way prepares one to become a doctor.
OP, did your D have someone whom she can talk to about medical career and how to get there? A lot of kids said they want medicine, but as other posters said, there are great weed out in college and afterwards. Have her explore, and be ready to offer encouragement as she goes along!
I also did some searches on correlation between SAT (HS success) with MCAT. From what I can tell, there is really no correlation. It is truly a case that kids mature at different stages in life and middle of the pack HS students can be great doctors if they apply themselves. I also welcome all the seasoned posters comment on this point!!
D is a CS premed junior. She actually didn’t have medicine on her radar fully (never did anything medical in HS), but instead talked to us about opportunity costs against going to medical school until the 2nd year when she did really well on orgo chem. Especially last summer, she found more satisfaction In her hospital volunteering than her high paid CS internship.
@coolguy40 , I hope you are right about CS major. If not, at least she will earn enough from her internship to pay for medical school application fees. Lol. My D believes in having backups.
we tried to get her to talk to multiple friends of us who are in the medical and science profession. This is the last year she might stay with us so really don’t want to bring any more stress.
Maybe a non-science major, if she’s interested, could be something to think about? She can still pursue the pre-med requirements while diversifying her med school application. Just a thought.
