<p>Does anyone have any details on the four year BS/MS Biology program at Emory? Is it worth it? How consuming is it? Is there any time for a life or is it constant studying? Do you have to be selected to be a part of it or can anyone decide to take this route? thanks in advance</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I think they may have axed that (at least for incoming freshman) 
(bad idea, but I think because of the pre-med presence, the demand for such a program may be low. Students aren’t gonna go over and beyond when they just plan to go to med. school. They’ll just settle on a B.S. and then do an honors thesis if they are qualified. I think the chem BS./MS may even be in higher demand as you have more chemistry majors considering grad. school or industry). I’ve known people who have done it and it looks simply a tad more rigorous than an honors thesis (as in, you must take more grad. level classes), but getting through the undergrad biology curriculum at Emory is fairly easy (in addition, you can have some of those grad. classes for the M.S. count as electives toward the B.S. I think). Given that only certain undergrad bio classes are considered challenging at Emory (admittedly, these are the best classes if you are pursuing a masters or beyond and they usually have the best professors), I wouldn’t say that you should be studying significantly more than a normal B.S. It’s not the class workload that will be an issue, it’s your research. You should try to get in a lab as early as possible so that you can start exploring and settle on a project or lab to begin getting data as soon as possible. It’s the research commitment that will of course make the masters track more challenging than a B.S. And I think you can just start doing it if it’s still available. Mainly people with lots of AP credits that can make room for the extra coursework easily tend to do it. If it’s still an option, I recommend using your AP credits in science or whereever and trying to get upperlevel courses knocked out as soon as possible in both chem and bio. You may want to, for example, use a bio 141 credit and take bio 240 in the fall and then bio 142 in the spring. This way, you get a column requirement and the intro series requirement done in your freshman year.</p>