<p>You are right, no need to worry about this now. You don't have to declare a major until this time 2 years from now, and even then you can switch. I was planning on majoring in cog sci, but i think that I will actually not do it. I am thinking of doing sociology instead - you never know what might strike you once you get here.</p>
<p>Now, to your questions:</p>
<p>1) If I want to do Pre-Med track with CogSci, how is the course load, and will I be overwhelmed? And how will it affect medical school admissions?</p>
<p>If you look at the general announcements or department webpages (they can both be found online), you can see all about which classes are required for the majors. Yes, almost all of the pre-med requirements are fulfilled by the biochem major, but i would expect your courseload to be about the same as a biochem major as a cogsci major. Here's why: assuming you take the pre-med requirements if you are doing either major, after completing the pre-med stuff, you would need to take ~11 more classes to be a BA in Biochem major (including labs), ~13 more to get a BS in Biochem, and 12 for cog sci. So it doesn't matter much. The nice thing in terms of courseload/being overwhelmed is that the cog sci classes are more varied in terms of structure - so you don't have to take lots of lab/problem set type classes, but can mix in lots of paper/reading/discussion type classes. That would help me not to become overwhelmed, i don't know about you.</p>
<p>I'm no med school adcom, so take everything I say here with a handful of salt: I think it doesn't matter too much what you major in IF you take and do well in the pre-med classes and demonstrate that you want to become a doctor and know a little about what that means (through volunteering, research, EMT-ing, alternative spring break trips, etc.), and do well on the MCATs, of course. Suppossedly music majors do very well on getting into medical school, and bio majors less so. I say, take some of both, and do what you like better.</p>
<p>If you are interested in cog sci, In your first year or semester, try taking some or all of: LING 200, PHIL 103, and PSYC 203. They are a great intro to what cogsci is about. I took them this year, and thought they were so-so, but i really like my soci class, which is why I'll probably go with that.</p>
<p>2)I was reading over the Rice websites, and it seems as if there are more internships and research opportunities for Biochem majors. Is this true? I definitely want to do research as an undergraduate (I was named a Century Scholar) but will majoring in CogSci have less opportunities compared to Biochem majors?</p>
<p>Quantitatively, you are probably right. There are probably more opportunities available in biochem than cog sci, and that's especially true if you count the medical center. I'm not sure that this matters though. All you really need is one or two good opportunities - you can't do 20 research projects anyway! There are plently of opportunities to get involved in cog sci research, particularly in psychology. I know Dr. Tony Ro's lab always takes century scholars, and I think Dr. Michael Byrne does too. You should look on the century scholars website and see how many projects there are that interest you in both fields.</p>
<p>An important point is that you do not have to do your century scholars research in the field that you major in, though many people do. So if you want to try something completely different, you should. You could do history research, electrical engineering research, etc. Actually, I was planning on doing cog sci, but was really interested in a soci project which i decided to do for century scholars. I took a sociology class to prepare for the research, love it, and now might be a soci major, so choosing something you never though of before could be really great.</p>
<p>3) Since CogSci is so interdisciplinary, will I be learning less from each field?</p>
<p>Perhaps. You would certainly get a broader knowledge of each subject by being a major in that subject. But, not all of that breadth is relevant to cogsci, which is why the curriculum doesn't include it. So for example, if you were a psyc major instead, you would also take classes in social psychology, developmental psychology, psych of gender, etc. Which might be better for you, depending on where you interests lie.
The best way to get a deep knowledge of a subject though is to take a lot of classes in it and do research in the field, both of which you can do without limit as a cogsci major.
If this is something that you are really worried about, e-mail <a href="mailto:margolis@rice.edu">margolis@rice.edu</a> and ask him (he's the major advisor for cognitive science, designed the cogsci curriculum and was my prof for PHIL 103.</p>
<p>I hope this helped you a little, but try not to worry - things can shift a lot in a year or two, and this time next year for all you know you'll want to be a soci major, or chemical engineering or something!</p>