I’m almost a Senior and it’s time for me to decide what I want to major in in college. I want to have a safe job if going into the medical field does not work out for me, so I wanted to ask what good majors may be in college so that I can have a backup. Another question I had was what are the requisites and the classes you absolutely need for the MCAT. Is there any way I can minor in these requisites and major in something else?
Pre-med is not a major – it is a group of required coursework that you need for medical school. If you google “medical school required courses” you will get an idea of the classes you will need. You can major in just about anything and be pre-med. Unless you are looking at colleges where you have to apply for a specific major, you probably don’t need to declare a major until late sophomore year of college.
You can major in anything and get into medical school if you take the prerequisite courses and do well on the MCATs While biology, chemistry, and biochem are common majors for pre-meds, if you decide against medical school or don’t get accepted, those majors often require an advanced degree to get a good job.
While it’s not the norm, I’ve seen Classics majors accepted to medical schools.
Medical school are moving to competency based admissions,. You will need to demonstrate competency through coursework or a significant body independent work (such as research culminating in a senior thesis).
Areas of competency include: inorganic & organic chemistry, cellular & molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, college-level physics, statistics/biostatistics, mathematical functions (calc 1), oral & written communications skills, humanities, social science.
More traditional medical schools still have specific course requirements–
intro bio w/labs – 1 year
gen chem w/labs – 1 year
organic chem w/labs – 1 year
intro physics w/ labs – 1 year
biochem – 1 semester
statistics or biostatistics – 1 semester
college level mathematics – 1 semester
composition or writing intensive classes as designated by your college – 1 year
(Some med schools specifically require an English class for your second writing class)
psychology – 1 semester
sociology --1 semester
Specific med schools may have additional requirements-- human physiology, medical ethics, calc 2, public speaking, basic computer science, upper level social sciences or humanities.
The Mcat tests topics in gen chem, ochem, biochem, physics, cellular & molecular bio, genetics, biostatistics, psych, soc. Critical reading skills are also vitally important to scoring well.
Any academic major is acceptable to med schools. My daughters’ med school classmates had majors ranging from the typical biology, chemistry, biochem and neuroscience to forestry/agriculture, theology, English Lit, Spanish, music theory, human geography, engineering, physics, computer science. There are two posters here who are recently graduated doctors who majored in Classics.
The post graduation employment outlook for bio, chem, neuroscience majors is not wonderful. There are jobs, but you have to make yourself an attractive candidate to employers. (Computer skills. Direct customer sales skills. Industry internships. Teacher certification.) Many health sectors jobs may required additional training or education after a bachelors.
You can’t minor in the prereqs because they aren’t in one discipline.
As for a major that would allow a backup career, what are your best and favorite subjects?
Pretend you aren’t going to med school. What would you major in if Plan B were Plan A? Major in that. It’ll be fine if med school ends up remaining Plan A.
Be sure it’s something you enjoy. Students get better grades more easily when they’re studying something they like. As a pp mentioned, in many schools you don’t need to declare a major right away so you should have time to contemplate a couple options if you aren’t sure just yet.
FWIW, most college students end up changing their major anyway, so knowing “for certain” ahead of time is rarely necessary. (A quick google search shows 50% to 80% pending which site one looks at - and of course, many are undecided to start with.)
^
Above is good advice. A potential down side is that if you stumble your first year in a couple of premed reqs (eg a C+, B), it would be smart to take some UD science courses and do well (ie As) to show med schools you can handle more rigorous science material. Such UD science courses would be easy to pencil into one’s schedule if you’re say a bio major as UD science courses would be part of one’s major reqs, but perhaps more difficult to fit in if you’re say a history major.
RE: Plan B. Every pre med needs a Plan B-- the competition to get a med school acceptance is fierce and most freshmen pre-meds won’t make it.
But, in general, you should avoid vocational majors. Vocational majors are majors that prepare you for direct entry into a specific job/career.
For a variety of reasons, students in specialized health science fields (nursing, nutrition/dietetics, athletic training, clinical laboratory science/medical technology, dental hygiene) don’t fare well in medical school admission.
https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/factstablea17.pdf
Other vocational majors (engineering, business) have their own issues. For engineers, it’s maintaining a GPA high enough that it doesn’t automatically screen one out of med school admission consideration. For business, there’s the issue of finding space in one’s schedule for the 10 med school pre-req classes, plus the difficulty of cross enrollment between the business college & the liberal arts & sciences college. (Many universities don’t allow it.)
Not saying that any of the above makes those majors a bad choice, but it will make your med school journey more difficult.
Question - most colleges (my D’s included) have a “Physics for Life Sciences” set of courses, and a “General Physics” set which the math/physics type majors have to take.
Is she fine going with the “for Life Sciences” set of courses as it relates to the med-school prereqs? She did OK in AP Physics (B), but definitely not her favorite or strongest subject.
Physics for life sciences is ok. Physics for non science majors would be a no no.