<p>I will be a freshman in the fall, and I plan on taking a pre-med track. However, my major is undeclared and I honestly don't know what I want to major in.</p>
<p>My academic adviser claims that it's fine if I do not take Biology my freshman year, but I'm very unsure now because many of my peers are doubling up Chemistry and Bio and not taking any math course this year. What should I do? </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter all that much. The idea is to not take all three. Chem/calc is probably more common-- Bio tends to be predominated by sophomores and juniors. I think this is the easier combination and better for your first year. The downside is it means taking Orgo and Bio together – although I feel the ideal schedule is to take Bio your Junior year, though some would consider that late for the MCAT. You could also take any of these courses over the summer at an Vanderbilt or at a college near your home.</p>
<p>As you can see, Vandy’s premed office recommends the schedule I feel is best: <a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/hpao/documents/Threading%20a%20path%20through%20premedical%20expectations%20-%202013-08-12%20Rev.pdf”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/hpao/documents/Threading%20a%20path%20through%20premedical%20expectations%20-%202013-08-12%20Rev.pdf</a> .</p>
<p>Feel free to call or email the premed adviser with your thoughts/concerns.</p>
<p>Full disclosure, I am not a pre-med and never took BSCI 110.</p>
<p>Please see the “pre-med schedule” thread from last week.<br>
The addition of psych, sociology, and biochem to the MCAT will push more pre-meds into summer school.</p>
<p>@bud123 : Really?! The pre-med pre-reqs are not that hard to fullfill. There are maybe 4 sequences (you can fullfill these in 2-3 years and throw psyche and soc. in to one of those semesters as a grade buffering class at some institutions because they are generally so much easier to make a high grade in that many science courses). In addition, the sample questions they provided on that review guide about those sections essentially involve reading comprehension and you don’t have really have to know very specific details about those (the passages kind of let you derive them on the spot). I don’t see how difficult it should be to fit a sociology and psyche course into a semester schedule. Most schools have gen. ed requirements anyway, and those would help fulfill them. Summer school should not be necessary to accommodate that and a biochemistry course (which will not necessarily help for the new MCAT anyway because most college, including elite colleges, biochemistry 1 courses and even biochem 2 courses often focus on “memorize the structures and pathways” as opposed to the experimental biochemistry that goes on the MCAT and GRE biology/biochemistry exams. However, biochemistry is needed mainly because more med. schools are recommending or requiring it). </p>
<p>As for math, though major dependent, it seems not to matter when students take it as long as it is before they apply (so that it is on the transcript). Like if you are in math or physical sciences (includes chemistry), the sooner the better. </p>
<p>Yep!</p>
<p>I have to wonder if that will only catalyze a migration to summer courses because pre-healths are often very “soft” (course selection wise) compared to non-prehealth science major counterparts. However, who blames them. It’s not because they want to be soft so much as the process requiring them to hold fairly high science GPA’s. In such a case, the addition of even a couple of easy/moderate classes to what they view as an already packed. Often it actually isn’t though. It isn’t unusual for me to see many non-prehealth physics, applied math, and chemistry majors juggle several advanced sciences and maths at once with maybe 2-3 of them being having a lab component. They usually do pretty solidly, however I guess the difference is most of them are genuinely interested in most courses they sign up for and they are not just requirements/recommendations and pre-reqs for whatever the next step is. They feel less pressured to take certain courses and also less pressured to make certain grades (usually B+, A-, and A, which are flat out scare in some science depts and even when not scarce, take tons of work and thinking skills to earn unlike a lot of the more rote/surface type of learning that is often rewarded in many of natural science courses in college, even good ones, where if you know the content of lecture slides and textbook, you should do fairly well. A deep understanding is often not needed and may actually be harmful on exam performance) in them so are thus more flexible with course load management. </p>