I was recently admitted to the University of Michigan and and contemplating what field to go into. My top two interests as of now is computer science and pre med (specifically orthopedics). I also have tons of other interests as of now but those are my top two. I’m sure that’ll change many times.
I am wondering if there are any cs people or premed people that wouldn’t mind to weigh in on this. I really like math and science, I kinda wanna make a lot of money but also have a meaningful job.
You can be a CS major and on a pre-med track.
I’ve looked into that but I’ve heard that medical schools care a lot about gpa and ive also heard that keeping a high gpa in cs is really hard.
You are in LSA? You don’t have to choose yet. Start taking the pre-med courses (Bio/Chem/Org Chem/Physics) and the pre-reqs for CS (2 math & 2 engineering courses). See what you like!
Take the 1st math class for CS & see how it goes. There are med schools that want Calc anyway.
I am enrolled in LSA right now yes. I think that if I decided to go pre med I would maybe try to transfer to Kinesiology for movement science which I think is better for orthopedics. I have also talked to an advisor and they said I could double major in CS and movement science, just that it might take 4.5 or 5 years to graduate with both degrees.
Thoughts?
Yes.
Not necessarily. The hardest courses in CS are math courses, CS theory courses and upper-level CS specialty courses that require even more math. You said you like math and I presume you did well in math in HS. Math courses are useful regardless what you do later in life. Do what @collegemom3717 suggests and you may feel more confident.
It is way too early for a possible pre-med to be thinking about medical specialties (which are often competitive based on how you do in medical school and exams). You can take some kinesiology courses as electives, regardless of your major.
You can start by taking math and CS courses for the CS major as well as chemistry for pre-med purposes. Depending on how you do in the first semester or year, you can re-evaluate:
- If your GPA < 3.7 or so overall and in science/math, then your chances of getting into medical school are low, so you may want to look at other plans.
- If your GPA >= 3.7 or so overall and in science/math, then you may have a decent chance of medical school, but medical school should still be considered a reach – you will need to keep doing that well, do pre-med extracurriculars, score highly on the MCAT, etc… If getting a GPA >= 3.7 requires enormous amounts of work or unsavory grade-grubbing for you, then do you really want to keep going down the pre-med path?
- Michigan LSA CS requires a 2.5 GPA in the four prerequisite courses: https://cse.engin.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/11/cslsa_guide.pdf . This is not that hard compared to trying to get into CS at some other schools.