<p>(Note: for more background information on my issues specifically, please search for my previous threads.)</p>
<p>Well, I'm going into my senior year and am a Biology major but HATE it. However, I only have four more courses to go in Bio. Everyone keeps saying "change your major! Change your major!" Even the major I could switch into - environmental geoscience - would require eight of its own classes, which are not offered in the summer, by the way. I don't want to turn into a perpetual student.</p>
<p>As for after college - I'd like to go to a health-related graduate program - even (gasp) medical school, or at least optometry, etc., but cannot apply now - I wouldn't be a competitive applicant. (Once again, an explanation of this - undiagnosed-until-recently ADHD - is found elsewhere; please search. In addition, I have a digestive disorder that has caused me lots of misery.)</p>
<p>I would like to make it clear that I am NOT interested in research or anything else to do with biology - only with health. If I won't be able to get a health-related professional degree or certification of some type, I'll go into business or IT or...something that ISN'T biology.</p>
<p>Pros and cons:</p>
<p>Biology:
+ Can finish more easily
+ Don't need to spend excessive time
- Very difficult, cutthroat atmosphere
- I can't stand it
- Undesirable on medical school applications
- Essentially worthless degree in itself</p>
<p>Switching major:
+ Something I enjoy more
+ Perhaps "useful" even by itself
- Will turn into a "perpetual student" and not in a good way (i.e. spending excessive time/money on undergraduate level)
- Getting sick of where I go ("it's not you, it's me")
- Don't even know if this is possible (bureaucracy)</p>
<p>If you are going to graduate school for something health- or business-related in the near future, I’d just finish the biology major and get out of college ASAP. You’ll be spending enough time and money on your graduate education later. No need to drag out your undergraduate education.</p>
<p>However, switching to environmental geosciences would make a lot of sense if you intended to work in the field after college.</p>
<p>Just finish with the bio major…there are a bunch of health professions that do not involve med school and as many business ones where a bio degree undergrad could be an asset…</p>
<p>You state that you’re not competitive for medical school. Could you be competitive after this year? Or could you be competitive for some other type of graduate school that would lead you to a career in health? If so, stay the course. If not, it’s time to change.</p>
<p>(Knock on wood) Now that I understand my quirks and health conditions better, I feel I might be able to do this - I might have at least a shot at osteopathic medical school. If not, then there should be at least SOME graduate program that will look at me…I hope…</p>
<p>You didn’t state your financial situation but I’m assuming that you don’t have infinite funding for school - given that, I’d say finish what you started and then carefully pick a graduate program. Students can wander around a lot and never graduate. I have a nephew doing the five-year community-college program.</p>
<p>Question is what do you need to do to “become a competitive applicant” for the post grad health programs you have your eye on? Will changing majors and pullings A’s do it? Or do you need to wrap up the bio degree and come up with a diff plan? </p>
<p>ie: start new in business all depends on what doors your undergrad degree/grades will open for you. </p>
<p>graduate then find job or training as stepping stone to health field ie: EMT/Paramedic, RN, Pharmacy Tech then apply to PA programs ect</p>
<p>I think that you really need to consider whether or not you will be successful continuing in your biology major and actually graduate with 4 more biology classes over 2 semesters. </p>
<p>Did the D you received in molecular biology count towards your major? If not, then are you counting a re-take or a replacement course in those 4 courses? I don’t mean to be harsh, but completing a biology major may be farther than you think, making it closer to a major that you find more interesting.</p>
<p>One question though: What is it about biology that you so dislike? If you study any type of health profession, many of the same subjects (anatomy, physiology, microbiology, immunology) will re-appear, albeit with a more applied focus. If you really dislike those aspects of biology, then you really should think about what it is about a health profession that appeals to you.</p>
<p>I am of the opinion that a student will be most successful doing something that he or she enjoys doing.</p>
<p>What do I dislike about biology? The “weed-out” attitude so prevalent in many classes and people being rewarded for brown-nosing. Not inherent to biology, but in practice, appears frequently among professors of certain subjects.</p>
<p>It all too often feels like a zero-sum game where the limited number of “professor’s pets” take the jackpot and the others who work their butts off don’t get anything.</p>
<p>Here’s what I think you should do: finish the biology major – it’s FOUR classes, you can deal with four classes! After graduation don’t look for lab work, but do use your biology degree to look for health related grad school programs/jobs.</p>
<p>Also, my parents want me staying home the year or so after I graduate “studying for the MCATs” - OK, I certainly will study, but I feel like my life will turn into “Groundhog Day”. I want to move forward somehow.</p>
<p>The unemployment rate for graduating engineering majors in 2011 was around 7%. I don’t know what it is for 2012 but I’d guess that it’s worse given the trajectory of the economy.</p>
<p>You could go on and get your masters in healthcare administration or MBA to work in a health related environment/business. You could also go on and get a Nursing degree.</p>
<p>An engineering degree is a specific qualification for a number of jobs that actually exist, plus it functions as a pretty good guarantee that the holder is smart and can work hard. That’s why graduating engineers seem to have a leg up getting good jobs. And, yeah, it’s completely normal for people not in that position to envy people who are in that position when they start focusing on life after college.</p>
<p>In the health world, there isn’t any equivalent undergraduate gatekeeper credential (outside of nursing or PA). A bio degree is just as good as health management, or public policy, or whatever for getting a foot in the door, either in jobs or in graduate programs.</p>
<p>I understand that you would probably like something to “cure” your spotty performance so far. It looks like that’s going to cost money, though, in the form of extra tuition. My sense is that rather than switching majors, and getting to say something like “My major GPA is much higher than my overall GPA,” the money would be better spent on a master’s program that would (a) be more specific to whatever jobs you want to pursue, and (b) let you do really well and consistently, which would then more or less render your whole undergraduate record irrelevant.</p>