<p>I am most likely going to Harvard or Northwestern in the fall. I am looking to major in Chemistry. Not only did I love ap chemistry, but I also think a degree in Chemistry can be very useful in getting jobs as well. </p>
<p>I am going to be pre-med, so my aim is to maintain a high GPA (3.7-3.8) and at the same time have some time to do extracurriculars and enjoy college life. Is Chemistry a suitable major for that? The reason I do not want to go in as a Biology major is that I hate memorizing and that will burn me out before medical school. Chemistry is much more analytical and you can understand it.</p>
<p>Second, Chemistry provides a lot of quantitative and analytical skills so can that be useful for getting jobs at Investment Banks and firms as well out of a school like Harvard or Northwestern? I am also considering minoring in Economics.</p>
<p>Thanks. Any advice for you experienced people will be helpful.</p>
<p>Chem is a fine major for pre-med but it won’t cover all the med school prerequirements. Make sure you take a full year of biology and a full year of physics. They also require a year of English. Most med schools have the same general prereqs but you should check to make sure you’re covering everything. Some might require classes in cell bio or genetics. Plus, the bio section on the MCAT will be easier if you take more bio classes.</p>
<p>Also, and this is super important, you need to do a lot of volunteer work, ideally with patient contact. If you don’t have years of work, med schools won’t think you are ‘committed’ to medicine and won’t accept you. I know two people who graduated with 4.0s from UC Davis and were both rejected from every med school they applied to. The reason? No outside volunteer work. They were straight up told that the schools didn’t think they showed interest in medicine.</p>
<p>I don’t think chemistry is going to be helpful for jobs in investment banks (if you want to got o med school why are you thinking about banking?) but econ is useful. I would just worry about the time commitment with a chem major, extra classes, volunteer work, and a minor in econ. But if you think you can make that work, all the power to you.</p>
<p>i am just thinking of banking, i dont know, in case i change my mind about medicine. So Chem overall is hard as hell? See, I want to major in something that requires more analytical thinking so once I understand it, I dont have to do useless memorizing. AP Chemistry seemed amazing to me, just the right blend of memorizing and analytical thinking and hands-on and theoretical work.</p>
<p>Chemistry is fine. Also working in a faculty’s lab as a research assistant should boost your resume for med school. Just note that gen. chem is literally too general and doesn’t really reflect your life as a chem major. There are courses like organic chem, analytical chem, physical chem, inorganic and etc, all with its own distinct characteristics. For example p-chem will be quantitative as hell while organic chemistry is not.</p>
<p>as a chemistry major, you can tread between two-three tracks. some chem majors take all their electives and what not in biolgy/biochemistry (filling the pre med requirements too).
others take physics and math classes, and become borderline physics majors (although not really).</p>
<p>if you take the second route, it will probably be better for you should you want to go into investment banking or whatever.</p>
<p>note: my understanding is that both fields require a lot of outside curriculum involvement-shadowing doctors etc for pre med, networking/summer internships for business.
it may be difficult to do both…</p>
<p>At a lot schools (at least mine), the requirements for a degree in chemistry/biochemistry meet or exceed the physics and math requirements for most med schools. All science/engineering majors should be taking two years of calculus and a whole year of physics. If you’re a biochem major or a chem major on a biochem track then you’re bio requirements will surely be met…if not, just do like flemmyd said and use your electives to take the bio requirements.</p>
<p>If you like chem…it’ll be easy, trust me. There’s so many pre-health majors that take the chem courses who don’t know what the hell they’re doing that it drives up your grade a good bit :)</p>
<p>In my experience with AP Chemistry, it seems that the course is just extremely broad. For instance, there is a whole unit on Kinetics, but I am absolutely sure that there is A LOT more to Kinetics than just the tiny amount we learned in AP. So like some of the previous posts have mentioned, I would be look into the full spectrum of what chemistry majors must go through. If that curriculum fits your interest, then by all means do it. But I would not base your decision off of what was learned in AP.</p>
<p>in graduate school, you can take a whole yearlong class in quantum mechanics…
kinetics will easily be another stand alone class for graduate students…
same for thermodynamics (and the various methods to solve it…)
the whole idea behind chemical bonds can be extended to inorganic/physical chemistry (whole fields!)
and the idea of one state of matter mixing with another state of matter is a whole nother field (surface chemistry)</p>
<p>most freshmen level courses are just survey courses. there are people who spend their whole lives (and write correspondingly long books) on incredibly specific topics. try going to your university’s library and go to the science section.</p>
@Jenn826 - You are not likely to get an answer, the OP was last active on this site 4 years ago. It is best to start your own thread and ask those who are active to respond to your questions.