“Hi! I know many pre-med students major in Biology or Biochemistry or biomedical engineering. What route did you choose?”
I chose the old-fashioned biology degree. Something like 2/3 of my current class in medical school were some biology-related major. However, you can be ANY major and apply to medical school as long as you are able to fulfill the general pre-medical class requirements, which tend to be 1 year of Biology (BILD 1, 2, 3 will suffice), 1 year of general chemistry (CHEM6A,B,C), 1 year of physics (PHYS1A,B,C), 1 year of organic chemistry (CHEM140A,B,C), and 1 year of English, which will vary between the different colleges at UCSD. Some medical schools are starting to highly recommend biochemistry, which would be BIBC 102 at UCSD. Statistics is also recommended so PSYC 60, or MATH 11 at UCSD. You are able to take these as any major at UCSD as long as you fulfill the respective pre-reqs for the courses.
“What do you recommend for the application to medical school? Do they look for clubs, volunteering, or working in a research lab? What do you do to make yourself an attractive candidate?”
I would recommend all three, honestly. Volunteering in a hospital setting is something they definitely will look for. It doesn’t have to be a CRAZY amount of hours, but you will most definitely need to do that.
Clubs will show that you had lots of different interests while in college and that you pursued them. It doesn’t just have to be Biology club or BSSA, it can be ANY club you really have a passion for and possibly something you can talk about in the medical school interview when trying to look for unique aspects to your application. Clubs also offer the opportunity to show some leadership on your application, which is character quality medical schools will definitely look for.
Working in a research lab can be a little tedious to get, but it definitely is a good way to show that you can apply what you are learning towards a project. Something to look out for that some pre-meds were confused by, don’t confuse being a lab dishwasher as “research”. Make sure it is active research under the professor or a grad student. A lot of the time, professors at UCSD will want to see you’ve had some upper division science courses under your belt with some good grades before taking you in to work on a project.
As for other things to do to make yourself an “attractive candidate”, a lot of pre-meds will do medical trips abroad. UCSD offers plenty of associations and clubs that do these trips to places like Honduras or Panama for a week and there are a lot of neat experiences included in those types of things.
Shadowing physicians is almost a “must-have” and quite frankly, a good way to see if medicine is something you definitely want to pursue.
I wouldn’t pile all these things on at once. It is almost impossible to do at the same time while trying to maintain a high GPA, but four years in undergrad is a longer time than you think and there is a ton of things you can do.