<p>Hi. I was wondering how hard the arabic program is. I was thinking of going pre-med, plus I recently decided i want to transfer into the SFS and I was wondering if it would be stupid to try and take arabic on top of all that. I have been taking latin for the past 6 years also so in some ways I just want to do french because it would be a lot easier for me.</p>
<p>Pre-med plus arabic is tough. I don’t think anyone would tell you any differently. The big issue is credits. The first two years of arabic are intensive which means that they are 6 units each. Fitting them in with all your pre-med requirements could be tricky and may drive you crazy. Most schools get through 5 or 6 chapters of the first book for Arabic, Georgetown gets through 18. However the program is fantastic, really one of the best in the country. The book that everyone uses Al-Kitaab is published by Georgetown. Im in Egypt right now taking a full year of Arabic, which you could consider in order to free up some of the credit conflict. On a different note being pre-med and in the SFS isn’t a big deal. One of my very good friends is and he feels like being bio pre-med is equally challenging.</p>
<p>haha uh oh im tryin pre-med with arabic too</p>
<p>Arabic for me was 1-2 hours/night of homework, 5 nights a week. Plus an hour of class every morning. And I was a slacker - I don’t really remember too much Arabic now. Plan on doing 2-3 hours of homework every night and going to class every day if you really want to learn it. Also, plan on doing a semester abroad in an Arab-speaking country - most people go to Cairo - if you really want to solidify your knowledge and take full advantage of what you’re learning. I didn’t do this, and regret it.</p>
<p>Premed at Georgetown is very competitive. Our science departments are not something that we’re especially known for, and consequentially the quality of the instruction you’ll receive is varied. There are some excellent teachers. There are some who are an embarrassment. (Nota bene that I speak as someone with a lot of Premed friends, but who was not premed himself and didn’t take a single science class at Georgetown - for exactly the reason mentioned above. So take my comments with a large grain of salt.) Anyway, if you want to get into Med school, you need to plan on having excellent grades, especially in science. All of the premeds I know work their butts off. Most of them succeed. But none of them are also taking Arabic.</p>
<p>What you propose would be a serious challenge. Possible, but a serious challenge. To succeed, you would need to have almost no social life.</p>
<p>My suggestion is that you start off with just premed and add Arabic on after you settle in - but before you take Organic Chemistry, because you don’t want anything distracting you from that. Also, if you have any interest in medicine at all, you should take an EMT class and join GERMS ([Georgetown</a> Emergency Response Medical Service](<a href=“http://germs.georgetown.edu%5DGeorgetown”>http://germs.georgetown.edu)) I joined my junior year and have spent every minute since regretting not joining earlier. It almost made me change career paths.</p>