<p>Recently I decided that I am impartial between graduating and going the normal route which would be working at a software company or attending medical school ..
(I've realized that its not very fulfilling job if your not at a great company)</p>
<p>I am currently an upcoming senior undergrad in computer science at UF's college of engineering with a 3.75 gpa .. with only bio1,phy1&2, chem1 taken. I have enough time to take all the remaining pre-req necessary to meet admission requirements to most schools. </p>
<p>Assuming I take care of these pre-reqs and manage to raise my GPA to 3.8 and score a flat 30 on the MCAT, would I still be looked down upon by med schools .. I am assuming that students who don't really do anything to show interest in the medical field other than apply are in bad shape.</p>
<p>Can someone give me an example of what school I could possibly get into, if any?</p>
<p>oh, and an additional question .. do med schools care if you take 5.5 years to graduate ?</p>
<p>Your major won’t matter, but you do need to demonstrate interest in medicine before you apply. Taking the pre-reqs is not enough, you should also have significant community service and clinical experience. Research, while optional, can be helpful as well. It doesn’t have to be biomedical, and computer science offers a lot of opportunities that are relevant to medicine. I would recommend that you consider working at a computer science job for a year or two and, in your free time, begin to build a medical resume. You could also consider research stints like at the NIH or your university, I’m sure you could find some employment if you are proficient in stats.</p>
<p>Whether they would care would depend on why it took you 5.5 years. I would not spread out your time to graduation if the sole reason is to give you time to build ECs. Finish the pre-reqs quickly and then get out of college and on to other things.</p>
<p>One school DS looked at considers a computer science course as a math course. I know that many medical schools value the statistics as one of the math classes. I am somewhat surprised when I saw that the computer science classes are specifically mentioned by a medical school (I forgot which school’s web site mentions this on top of my head.) I do not think AMCAS will treat a computer science course as a BCPM course though. Many schools seem to mention behavior sciences/psycology classes. Some schools mention almost everything (Is UPenn one like this? All kinds of classes are recommended but none are not required. Wierd!)</p>
<p>You can take 10 years, nobody would care. You should do some medically related EC’s to find out at least, if you hate it or like it, you also should aim at higher than 30. I just wonder why such a huge turn around? You are talking about very different proffessions that require very different personalities. I have been in IT for 30 years, and jobs has never been bad or boring. There are better paying companies, and less paying places, but I love what I was doing at all 9 places of my employment. My D. is pre-med and I cannot see her in my field as well as me being in medicine. It is important to realize the reasons why you want one proffession over another. If you do not feel being where you belong and doing what you love, no amount of $$ will make you happy, you will be very frustrated.</p>
<p>heres another question, if I take the pre-reqs and I do not enjoy them at all … does this mean anything?</p>
<p>or are undergrad courses -> medical school -> M.D. completely different different experiences (not liking one won’t mean you won’t like whats to come?)</p>
<p>Yeah, other than the fact that they are science they are very different. However, make sure you don’t like the content rather than their difficulty.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call them completely different. Medical school’s first couple of years is fairly similar to a biology major, only more difficult. If you don’t like your prereqs, you’ll hate those two years.</p>
<p>And – and this was a nasty surprise for me – that continues on through your third and fourth years of medical school as well via so-called “shelf exams.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t have a lot to do with being a doctor, but it has a lot to do with getting through medical school. It can really make you miserable for four years.</p>
<p>BDM, It is nice to know what it is like in medical school.
But what are shelf exams? Are they the same as Step 1, 2, and 3? (my wild guess here.)
I heard the residency years could be even worse (due to its “intensity”, and even sleep starvation) if a person does not fully enjoy it.</p>
<p>OP, Unless you have a very good reason, I think med school adcoms do care if you take 5.5 years to graduate from college. I believe I learned this from BDM a while ago.</p>