Hey guys! So my current path for my future includes attending a community college and then transferring to UCLA. I have yet to pick a major and I was wondering if you can give any suggestions or tell me if the major one chooses even matters for med school. Also what courses should I plan on taking and are there any specific pre requisites for med school that I should remember??
This is a good discussion of medical school requirements, and how to study for the MCAT:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1996629-math-major-in-medical-school.html
Math or statistics majors are getting into medical school these days, but you can major in anything that interests you.
Do a search on what to major on for premedical and also see a premedical advisor at UCLA. If you can visit premedical advising now, you may get some hints on what to take at community college and what to take at UCLA,
ask them.
Why are you so settled on becoming a doctor? Do you have volunteer or paid exposure already to patient care so that you know health care is right for you? Might be a good idea before you sign up for a path that will take the next 11-15 years of your life.
And even if health care is a fit, doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, nurses, speech pathologists, physician assistants, to name but just a few. Careers that don’t involve hundreds of thousands in debt and 11+ years of prep. Spend a few hours browsing on http://explorehealthcareers.org
If, after getting experience in patient care and thinking about alternatives you still think becoming a doctor is the right choice then read thru the very informative https://www.rhodes.edu/sites/default/files/PreMed_Essentials.pdf. There is also a good handbook at https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/careers/gradstudy/health/guide and no doubt many other websites, as well as books.
Also look at getting a masters in public health as an alternative to a four year medical college.
Also, New York State and Missouri have special medical programs that are shorter by far… New York State
and PA offer physician assistant undergrad programs that require NO graduate school to get a medical license to practice. Missouri, in Kansas City, offers a medical program that combines medical school and undergrad into a six year MD program. See this BA/MD six year program in Kansas City at U of Missouri Kansas City.
I agree with @mikemac, it may pay off to find a way to get a medical degree and spend less,
and it may be a good idea to look at public health, PT or another health related field. You can also work at a Medical school as a lab technician with a masters degree in genetics. You can manage a medical lab with a bachelors degree,
too, I know students who gave up on medical school and chose these good careers.
Here is the six year medical program in Missouri. I only wish other states would copy this program:
http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/
It really depends. How many AP credits do you have and when do you wanna transfer? I didn’t have any AP credits myself, and I picked bio originally. I realized that with my job it was gonna take me way too long to transfer, so I changed to psychology a few semesters into it. I was very reluctant to in the beginning b/c I heard so many bad things about the major, and I really loved biology. But I realized that your major doesn’t matter in the admissions process for medical school. And now that I’m transferring to UCLA I couldn’t be more happy with my decision to change my major. I picked something I’ve found a deeper interest for, and I can still take all the pre-med prereqs and be a strong candidate for med school. Also, I don’t have to take a lot of the challenging upper divs that bio/science major students are required to take, classes that have like a <50% average at UCLA. This can be up for debate, but apparently adcoms don’t cut science majors any slack for lower GPAs in the admissions process. Honestly, when I’ve talked about major selection to numerous doctors and medical school students, and looked into it online, everyone says to just pick a major you’re interested in and to avoid picking a major solely to impress adcoms. The benefit to picking a life science major is that you most likely won’t have to take any extra classes, since essentially all the med school prereqs will be part of your curriculum anyways. I would say start your first semester at CC taking classes that are part of the IGETC, and get a jist for what you like, then pick your major.