Current undergrad taking questions!

<p>Books–it really depend upon what courses/major your student will be taking. Textbooks run from free (.pdf files provided by the instructor) to $300 for s single new textbook.</p>

<p>Math/science/econ textbooks are famously expensive. I estimate I never spend less than $350/semester for D2’s science/math textbooks–and I rent and buy used whenever possible. D2 also resells her texts at the end of the semester.</p>

<p>If your daughter has an idea of what classes she will be taking for the fall, you can look up the required textbooks at the UR Bookstore to get a rough idea of costs:</p>

<p>[Your</a> Customized Textbook List<em>-</em>University of Rochester*Bookstore](<a href=“Find Course Materials | University of Rochester Official Bookstore”>Find Course Materials | University of Rochester Official Bookstore)</p>

<p>Once you have a estimate for the fall–double that.</p>

<p>My ultimate goal is to eventually become a physician, so what major would be the beneficial in achieving that goal?</p>

<p>Garrry–my older D is in med school. She was a math & physics double major with a specialty in high energy physics. She has classmates who have majored in: music performance (guitar), English literature, neuroscience, biochemistry, microbiology, bio & environmental studies, electrical engineering, general biology (BA with no subspecialty), chemistry, history, classical studies, Spanish… </p>

<p>D2 will likely go to med school after a gap year. (Unless she gets wooed away from the idea by a graduate program–and the wooing has commenced.) She’s a double major in math and & neuroscience. </p>

<p>There really is NO BEST MAJOR to be as a pre-med. Study what interests you, fulfill your pre-requisites, medical volunteer like crazy, and score well on the MCAT. </p>

<p>And if you want to know which group as a whole scores best on the MCAT—it’s philosophy majors. (Bio majors as a group are near the bottom with only vocational majors scoring worse.)</p>

<p>(BTW, that music major above. He never did a single hour of lab research as an undergrad, but he rocked the MCAT and has terrific people skills.)</p>

<p>P.S. Another reason to study what you like is that 75% of all undergrad ‘pre meds’ end up never applying to medical school. And of those remaining 25% who do, only 40% get accepted into med school.</p>

<p>And to be clear, by far the biggest reason is not failure but change of mind. Lots of kids discover they don’t like the required classes, that they really aren’t attracted to the idea, that the reality of medical practice in this era is not as appealing as it looks when you’re younger, that they prefer something else, etc.</p>

<p>Given the issues relating to medical care in this country, I’m surprised that so many young people think they want to be doctors. I assume some of it is the sense of security, but they’ve never dealt with HMO’s and their contract bidding or with Medicare reimbursements or with malpractice issues. They also may tend to think of medicine as a noble profession. It certainly can be, but it’s also rife with unnecessary procedures ordered for the money, with vanity procedures offered for large dollars. I also wonder if they realize how difficult a practice can be, both personally and politically. </p>

<p>I also tend to think that medical school should be divided in purpose. We are now creating a percentage of doctors who don’t doctor or who barely doctor and who are really researchers with an MD. I don’t believe that’s the proper allocation of social resources because doctors are, to me, for providing medical care to people.</p>

<p>^^Actually some med schools are already addressing this issue, esp the new schools which are just opening. LIJ requires it’s students to get EMT certification and spend 3 years working as EMTs (including shifts and paperwork) as part of the curriculum. Another new med school in Kansas recruits its students from small towns and trains them in a small, rural town (via satellite) in hopes they will stay there as practitioners. Several established programs emphasis community involvement and send its students out into small, rural (or inner city) under-served areas as soon as their first year.</p>

<p>Also a dozen or so top medical school have changed they way they interview applicants in the last 2 years, using multiple mini situational interviews to see how these future doctors interact with people–including patients–and are selecting applicants who have excellent people skills as well academic achievement.</p>

<p>But part of the reality of medicine today is the system is broken. Medical school is enormously expensive–$45,000+/yr for a public U and $75,000/yr and up for a private school. New doctors graduate with crushing debt. (Public U students average $140,000; private U students $180,000. But it’s not uncommon to graduate with more than $250,000 in unsubsidized loans. And there is NO FA for med school except loans.) They often then spend 1-7 more years fulfilling specialized training requirements while making barely more than a fresh out of college BA makes. (Interns start around $32,000/yr; residents around $40,000.) So the interest mounts. A couple of economics studies have found that a doctor actually has less net lifetime earnings than a UPS delivery person who starts working immediately after high school. (Due to income loss while in school and residency, debt & debt servicing, malpractice, a shorter career span.)</p>

<p>This debt is why so many doctors become specialists, because a PCP practice doesn’t pay enough to retire their med school debt.</p>

<p>And I think why so many are attracted to medicine is because we do a lousy job of career awareness/education in high school. High school kids think there are only about 5 professions–doctor, lawyer, businessperson, teacher, whatever their parents do. In reality, there’s a whole spectrum of jobs out in the world, most of which students have never even heard of.</p>

<p>I also think a mark of the change in our society as it loses dynamism is an increasing focus on prestige. I’m not merely speaking of the shift from a “can do” nation to a “can’t do” one but of the solidifying of class expectations accompanied by the dramatic decrease in income mobility from year to year and from generation to generation. People do not realize we are less income mobile now than most other western nations, including Britain.</p>

<p>The right preschool, the right grade school, the right high school, the right college, the right degree - e.g., the proliferation of majors intended to convey something more than a liberally educated, well rounded person of intelligence. </p>

<p>But I should stop before I start talking about how we are becoming a nation of believers in ideology as the nations we used to mock for ideology - Communist China, in particular - are becoming more and more pragmatic.</p>

<p>So there are majors, minors, and clusters. What is the purpose of a minor or a cluster. Do we have to do a cluster or a minor at the U of R? If a person double majors, do they still have to doa minor or a cluster?</p>

<p>The purpose of clusters is to help kids channel whatever interests they have into a series of courses. The UR philosophy is that you should take what interests you but that the school has an obligation to teach so each department sets up linked series of courses. It’s a way of balancing pure freedom of choice with the academic mission of the university. </p>

<p>When you understand that, then minor make sense: a way to study more in an area without committing to the larger set of requirements of a major.</p>

<p>You have to do clusters but not minors. All the courses are divided into 3 general areas and you have to take a cluster in each. A minor is more courses than a cluster. I think some engineers - like BME - only need to take 1 cluster.</p>

<p>Lergmom summed it up well. The school has three main categories (natural science, humanities, social science). You need at least a cluster in each of the three. Your major will fulfill that requirement for one category, and a second major, a minor or a cluster will fulfill it in each of the remaining two categories. So the minimum you can do is one major with two clusters in the remaining category.</p>

<p>If you are double majoring in two majors within the same category, you’ll still need at least a cluster in each of the remaining two categories. If the double major includes majors from two of the categories, you only need a cluster in the remaining category.</p>

<p>My son’s take on the cluster idea is that it requires some coursework outside of your major, quasi gen ed, but instead of taking 6 “101-level” courses in unrelated subcategories, you are taking two clusters of 3 courses each that delve a little deeper into a more narrowly focused direction. To him, that’s more interesting - I think he would find an obligatory smattering of unrelated 101 classes painful. He’d much rather take higher level courses that build on a theme.</p>

<p>Colleges and universities spend a fair amount of their time thinking about stuff that doesn’t matter much in the individual student’s mind. Like the right departmental sequences for study and how much flexibility should be allowed. Some of this is school and department politics and some is pedagogy. The basic UR idea is to encourage students to try more and take more but with some structure. Thus they encourage double majors and minors and they respond to student-created clusters because those reflect the idea of study with structure. A few schools have literally no requirements other than a major. Most schools have traditional distribution requirements, one from column A, one from column B. UR’s approach is different. </p>

<p>When you understand UR’s approach, then programs like Take 5 make sense.</p>

<p>You can also apply one course to a cluster and a major/minor. For example, my d was a psych major (in the Social Sciences area). She was required for her major to take statistics. She used that as one of her math/natural sciences cluster courses, so only had to take 2 other math classes. She took another major and a minor in humanities, so ended up taking only one cluster.</p>

<p>Is it possible to double major in neuroscience and bcs?</p>

<p>No. You need choose one or other because there is too much overlap in required coursework.</p>

<p>Generally if you have 2 majors, you can have no more than 3 overlapping classes–classes that count towards both degrees. Same is true for minors and clusters. You can’t double-dip (have one course count towards fulfilling 2 different requirements) for more than 1 class.</p>

<p>With neuro and BCS, almost every class could/would count towards both degrees. In fact if you look at the course schedule, you’ll see many classes are cross-listed–i.e. same course listed both under neuroscience and BCS departments. </p>

<p>If you have a specialized interest that not served by majoring in one or the other, you could always petition the College to create an individualized major. Or you can select your electives and clusters to focus on one specialized area while majoring in one or the other.</p>

<p>How difficult is it too double major? Ill assume there would be more coursework. Also when does a student begin double majoring? I plan on double majoring in neuroscience and financial economics and then minoring in public health. Im wondering if thats too much and when can i begin the double major?</p>

<p>You can plan on whatever you want but your plans will change. Double majoring is pretty common at UR but you’ll learn all about the ins and outs when you’ve been there for a while.</p>

<p>My d double majored (humanities & social sciences) and did a minor as well (humanities). It was hard, but not terrible. I don’t know how easy it will be with a hard science, however.</p>

<p>A number of kids do double majors with a hard science - which generally means that science is not so hard for them! But when you haven’t gone to school yet, when you don’t know how it will go academically and socially, when you may find yourself drawn to things you don’t now recognize, when you may want to spend time on something else, then planning is just a game.</p>

<p>One thing to remember Garrry–is that double majoring plus minoring may not leave you with enough time to fulfill the other non-academic expectations that med schools have for applicants–like research (generally 2 years or more), extensive medical volunteering and community service. All of which require a substantial time commitment. </p>

<p>Plus med schools want well-rounded individuals with things like social activities and hobbies beside the rest of the package. If you’re all academics and nothing else–that’s the kiss of death re: med school admission. Every year there are 40 MCAT/4.0 GPA kids who don’t get accepted to med school because they’ve done nothing but study for 4 years.</p>

<p>Also if you want to have a semester abroad loading up with 2 majors, a formal minor plus your required clusters may prevent you from finding space in your schedule to do so.</p>

<p>All I’m saying is plans change. Wait until you’re at UR and see how things go.</p>

<p>Besides, you can’t declare a major, much less a second major or a formal minor, until December/January or later of your sophomore year.</p>

<p>Take a variety of courses and see what you like.</p>

<p>I agree with Lergmom and WOWM: I didn’t mean to imply that you should double major and minor. Only that you can. And I also agree that interests and goals change once you’re in college.</p>