<p>I have a strong passion for art--it keeps me sane and is one of my biggest interests. However I also love studying eyes and brains and working with children so I'd love to do something in medicine.
I've decided to major in Art and minor in Neuroscience and have managed to build a schedule that covers both as well as the pre-med requirements, but will I be sufficiently prepared for med school with an art major?
My family is worried that I won't be able to find a good job with an art major while I'm in med school, or that med schools won't take me seriously.</p>
<p>1) You won’t be working during med school.
2) Art is an incredibly time consuming major (the studio portion can be really tough).
3) If you could pull it off, I don’t think med schools would mind at all.</p>
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<p>Yes - major doesn’t matter. All you need to be “prepared” for med school is the pre-reqs. </p>
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<p>Like Curm said, you won’t be working in med school. There simply isn’t time.</p>
<p>As for taking you seriously, I don’t know much about an Art major, but med schools tend to want to see an academic major, by which I mean majors where you take written tests of some form. Not sure how an art major would play out, which is interesting because I work with the adcom and interview students for my med school… just haven’t run across one yet. Either way, the neuroscience minor will definitely help, and…</p>
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<p>… med schools will love that you majored in something that you’re passionate about instead of bio like everyone else, and it will show in the interview. I might call up a few schools and see what they think of art majors (or I’m sure BDM or someone who knows better than I do will be along).</p>
<p>As long as you can get in your prereqs, go for it! One highly respected medical school actually seeks out humanities majors:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/970047-top-medical-school-saves-slots-students-no-organic-chem-physics-mcats.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/970047-top-medical-school-saves-slots-students-no-organic-chem-physics-mcats.html</a></p>
<p>Just like not all music majors at all schools are created equal, I think not all art majors are created equal. Some are created as a “professional/career/terminal” major – which is called a conservatory in the case of a music major. Often times, a good BM (not a BA in Music) major is qualified for a free ride at a selective music conservatory.</p>
<p>Any majors that are very career-oriented, they often demand a lot of time commitment. Similarly for the architecture, theater, and, yes, to some extent an engineering major. (Maybe nurse, pharmacy – if there is an undergraduate-level one rather than a graduate-level one, are similar.)</p>
<p>As far as I know from my S’s experience as Graphic designer, any Art major is extremely time consuming. He was spending some 40-60 hours/week in UG just in studio, and overall had very small number of general education classes as his schedule was consumend primarily with art related classes. </p>
<p>Again, from my D’s experience as pre-med, I know that all pre-meds are extremely busy with very challenging classes and all medically related and other EC’s.</p>
<p>I have no idea how you are planning to combine both of them. You have to talk to somebody who is done it. I do not know single person who is art major and pre-med. However, my D. is Music Composition Minor and it is very doable. She also almost complete another minor - in Neuroscience, had to drop it because of additional requirements of one of Med. Schools on her list. According to her Neuroscience classes tend to be somewhat easier than other Bio classes.
This is my input based on my kids’ experience.</p>
<p>I heard about a film study major who did premed also. He claimed he spent a little bit more time on his film study than his premed classes. I have never heard about an architecture major doing premed. There are music majors (mostly BA in music, not BM as there is often no BM at most universities) who do premed – At one time, DS almost went this route but the lets-talk-about-music rather than lets-do-music aspect of his school’s music major turns him off. He was exploring many other majors, mostly other sciences, as well. This is one reason why he essentially had 3 labs in a semester senior year. The other reason is he skipped a lab in junior year, not because of a heavy course load but because of somethings else. Do not do this if you are a science major if you want an easier time in senior year.</p>
<p>I heard about neuroscience here from time to time. I wonder whether this is a cross-over field between biology and psychology. I started to be interested in this because DS’s lab seems to have something to do with “brain.” In his last lab (immuno related) they used mice as experimental subjects and he needs to grow bacteria often (it costs $500 each time.) In his current lab, they use fruit flies almost exclusively. I really can not understand why they study the tiny brains of the fruit flies. He said the fruit flies smell very bad and because they need to live a very humid environment, some equipment is rusted. He needs to clean it often. The PI may assign this cleaning job to a new undergraduate lab member when that new member starts working here. It appears that unless an undergraduate works more than 10 hours in a lab each week, very likely he or she will get a grunt job like this, at least initially. They will not ask a full-time postdoc to do this, will they? Also, a more naive, college-aged part-time undergraduate member may likely cause less trouble than a full-time lab technician after the who-knows-what-happens disaster event at this particular medical school 
If that new lab member joins the lab, it may be the first time DS is not a member who is the lowest ranked in any of the labs he has been in.</p>
<p>^Some Bio /Zoology major classes overlap with Neuroscience, some are specific to Neuro… D.'s intern position in Med. Research lab also dealing specifically with brain activities and chemicals involved. She loves to work with rodents and was able to obtain couple grants for her project.</p>
<p>Icarus, I don’t think Neuroscience minor would have any impact on admission. I have yet to really see/read anyone who said that minors matter for medical school admission.</p>
<p>The truth is that med schools don’t care what you major in, as long as you pull good GPA. That is, they don’t care if you major in something like Biochemistry, which is considered as one of the toughest majors in some schools, or major in say like psychology, which is noted as rather easier majors in other schools (I’m being ambiguous here since each school’s department difficulty varies significantly). What matters is sGPA (science GPA) based on BCPM, and MCAT score.</p>
<p>There has been a discussion about how some medical schools prefer “liberal arts major” over science majors. This, again, doesn’t mean those who majors in Bio, Chem, etc… receive disadvantages over those who major in English, History, Arts, etc…</p>
<p>Bottom line: Major in what you like and have a high GPA. And get a good MCAT. That’s the end of story. No matter how tough your courses are, if admission sees that you get a mediocre MCAT, you will be considered as a mediocre student.</p>
<p>P.S. About those who say that it’s impossible to work during med schools, I’ve heard about people teaching for Kaplan/TPR during med school. It’s not common, but I wouldn’t rule it out either (and to work for them, again, high MCAT score matters more than your major, if it matters at all).</p>