Biology vs. Psychology

<p>I will be a freshman at Xavier Louisianna next year and im currently going to be a psychology pre-med major.</p>

<p>my parents think itd be better for me to be a biology pre-med major.</p>

<p>the thing is, @ xula the pre-med options are bio, chem, or psych...which leads me to believe that there are very few differences b/t each concentrations requirements. further i was admitted into their honor corps program which is like pre med honors...also leading me to believe that there is very little difference.</p>

<p>basically, im wondering if it would be more helpful for me to major in biology. my parents claim i will have a higher chance for sucess, jobs in case i change my mind, and blah blah blah. </p>

<p>ive taken two years of IB Higher Level Psychology and know that I will be getting credits for the AP and IB tests. I have a stronger psych foundation because of these two years in comparison to the one year of honors biology freshman year.</p>

<p>what does everyone think? What is better...if there is a difference...biology or psychology? any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>oh and im also majoring in spanish.</p>

<p>i think you should do whatever you think is more interesting, whatever you enjoy learning about more....and it's been said multiple times on this board that your major has no bearing on your likelihood of getting into med school.....so just do whatever you feel like doing.</p>

<p>1.) Why are you restricted to those three majors??</p>

<p>2.) Why do your parents think bio has more options out of college? I'm not 100% sure this is true, to be honest.</p>

<p>3.) Statistics confirm that your major has no bearing on your med school admissions success.</p>

<p>Psych is a major that doesn't limit your options entering the job market. It doesn't necessarily push you in any direction either though.</p>

<p>If that isn't clear, what I'm getting at is that if you go bio, then there will a certain number of professions/jobs that will be open to you b/c of bio AND that you will stand a fair chance at getting simply b/c of your bio background. On the other hand there will be a lot of things that your background will close off to you, and you won't be able to enter those career fields except at a very menial level.</p>

<p>Psych on the other hand doesn't necessarily open up a lot of jobs, but it doesn't preclude you from many either, nor does it particularly help you in the competition for many jobs so you'll have to stand out some other way.</p>

<p>1) Those are the pre-med majors available and i do think that i be pre-med b/c theyre pre-med programs is the top in the nation for african americans and i do want to go to med school</p>

<p>2) i dont know, and i agree with you</p>

<p>3) good to know</p>

<p>1.) This doesn't make any sense. What, they won't let you apply if you're not one of these three majors? They'll write you mean letters? I'm really very confused.</p>

<p>im going to xavier louisianna b/c of their pre-med program.</p>

<p>w/i the premed program you can major in: bio, chem, or psych</p>

<p>my parents want me to major in bio pre-med
i want to major in psych pre-med</p>

<p>the honors program which i will be part of is just the pre-med program together, thus i don't see the point to majoring in biology...unless there is some apparent advantage...of which i have yet to find...</p>

<p>sorry i guess i explained that poorly to begin with...did that make sense?</p>

<p>Choose whichever interests you more- you may be surprised to find that your interests change in college. Psych HL should be a firm foundation for psychology, but don't be afraid to jump into biology with a weaker background. Anyway, Xavier's website says you can be premed in any major (unless you're in the accelerated program?). </p>

<p><a href="http://www.xula.edu/university-catalog/pre-health.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.xula.edu/university-catalog/pre-health.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>No, I'm still confused. Perhaps a little background will help me ask my question better.</p>

<p>Medical schools don't care what major you are. It simply doesn't matter. As long as you complete the requirements (2 years of chem, etc.), then you can be a sociology major (BRM), an econ major (me), or whatever you like. It simply doesn't matter.</p>

<p>So if you are restricted to these three majors, then that implies that the restriction is imposed by your school, which I've never heard of happening before.</p>

<p>From what I can gather, one of three things must be the case:</p>

<p>1.) There is some kind of special "premed" track which confers certain types of benefits - perhaps access to research labs and such. This track restricts you to these three majors.</p>

<p>2.) If you are not one of these three majors, your university will actually disallow you from taking required classes such as organic chemistry.</p>

<p>3.) If you are not one of these majors, your university will impose some other consequence on you - i.e. refuse to advise you as a premedical student.</p>

<p>I may also be overlooking some possibility.</p>

<p>In any case, there's no reason to choose one major over the other, as you can see, so informing me is probably a moot point for you. I am, however, curious.</p>

<p>i do want to do the pre-med track if it wasnt for the the pre-med at xula i wouldn't be going there. </p>

<p>their honors program is just for biology, psych, and chem pre-med</p>

<p>their honors program has yielded several med school admits and although i could major in something else...i do have an earnest interest in psychology (as well as spanish my second major) which is why i chose that major.</p>

<p>basically, i want to major in psych, which fortunately is part of their pre-med honors program.</p>

<p>as a part of the program i do have more access to research and will be assigned an advisor that will help me throughout the process.</p>

<p>that said...</p>

<p>from what i've gathered i will not have a significant advantage as a bio major.<br>
thanks for all of the advice!!</p>

<p>Finally, after looking into it with the link above (thanks warblers), I think I get what's going on. Correct me if I'm wrong. Hopefully this will prove useful to others as well.</p>

<p>If you major in biology, the biology major offers you a special "Track", which is very similar to what my school refers to as a "Concentration", that is, a subspecialty within your major. The biology major offers you a premedical "Track". Similarly, the chemistry major and psychology major offer you "Tracks" like this as well. This serves an organizational purpose more than anything else, except the following:</p>

<p>I believe you have tried to tell me that if you are in one of these three tracks, you are then eligible to be considered for their Honors Program, a distinction you (espera) have earned. No other major/concentration is eligible for this program. This program gives you special access to an advisor and research opportunities, a helpful consideration for medical schools.</p>

<p>exactly (10char)</p>

<p>bump......</p>

<p>sooo is it ok that i'm doing psychology?</p>

<p>yes, it's more than ok.</p>