wondering if any Emory students or grads can shed a little light on the differences, advantages, and disadvantages between a few of the majors - namely:
Human Health
Anthropology and Human Biology
Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology
Global Health (minor)
Predictive Health (minor)
@joecollege44 What do YOU envision yourself potentially doing as a career (and please cite more than just pre-med/pre-health as that is way to vague IMO. Maybe you like public health. Maybe you envision yourself doing research in a certain area) and in your extra and co-curricular life at Emory. And what type of learning do you think you’d like to do at Emory vs. what you may have done in high school? I can only frame what I know in those contexts because they are all strong options (and of course you can’t do things like a minor alone). I’d need to know your intellectual values (or maybe a passion) and some of what you want first. Describing these majors and their so called “strengths” or whatever isn’t gonna be very helpful because it is too subjective.
The whole concept of what a major is is also just over-rated anyway because your goal should be to get the BEST aspects out of any major or academic experience you engage: like choosing professors within a major is often more important than taking specific courses. Does having many small courses matter to you? Does learning how to write matter?
Would you like a major with a capstone experience? Whether a major hosts its own research fellowship and study abroad opps and connections is another important thing. Intellectual community and size may also be important to many. Try not to fall in the trap of viewing them as just a set of course requirements.
Think about what you wanna immerse yourself in and how (this is what makes programs such as the BBA program and now QTM so successful at Emory. They try hard to ensure students immerse themselves in the area in and out of the classroom when they can).
thanks bernie12 for the reply. It’s my daughter who will be attending Emory in the fall, not me. I don’t think she has a career path mapped out yet. Her favorite subjects are human biology and government/poly sci. Don’t know if she will go down the pre-med route, pursue public health, public policy, or even business or law. I can say that she definitely leans more toward the science-y side of things rather than the humanities side. Prob not a huge fan of writing, although sh is competent.
she is pretty independent and hasn’t asked for my advice or opinion in any of this. this is just me being nosy and curious.
@joecollege44 : She can honestly blend her interests then. Maybe human health or NBB is a safe bet (well-resourced, good EC/co-curricular events and opps, a study abroad program) for a primary major and anthropology can be dabbled in (or she could choose one of the associated minors). Because departments like biology, chemistry, anthropology, and NBB allow for heavy “dabbling” because they don’t put restrictions on who can take their upper division courses/electives (like as soon as you complete general biology, basically all the upper division biology courses open up. The NBB core courses minus 401 can almost be taken in any order, and then after 301, she can take the NBB hosted electives). Human health is maybe the only one that restricts entry into several upper divsions to those majoring in it. And interestingly enough, many of those upper divsions are apparently surprisingly on the “sciencey” side and benefit from students having backgrounds in things like general biology, human genetics, microbiology, etc which can be taken over in biology. There are actually genuine science labs connected to the Human Health Program (which is basically interdisciplinary) such as Dr. Quave’s natural products lab which is very well known and very open to undergraduate students who want to do research.
NBB is also interdisciplinary and gives tons of freedom and access to courses in other departments beyond the core sequence, but it has a fairly stringent, science oriented core (201,301, 302, 401).
Anthropology and Human biology at Emory is very strong, but educationally, I think NBB and Human Health may fit your daughter better. She can just take additional STEM courses (like physics, ochem, stats. and calc courses of interest) for pre-health or graduate school if she does human health. If she is more science oriented, it helps to be in a major where more of the core and elective offerings are a mixture of both scientific knowledge and methods. I think the courses and what many of them entail will just be more rigorous and develop her scientific thinking skills and knowledge better than anthropology. Anthropology has a few solid courses that do this, but sadly it is generally known as sort of a “cop-out” major for pre-healths.
One would think Human health would be a softer major than anthropology, but its relationship with the public health school, cdc, etc give it more scientifically focused course offerings that what one may expect. Anthropology definitely leans closer in the direction of pure social sciences overall vs. NBB and human health. And Human health also may draw more serious students because its programs require a capstone project of some sort. Needless to say, this sort of filters out less serious students who may otherwise just go there to take a set of easy courses to function as a GPA booster for med. schools. They want students to understand the research and current developments in various fields of healthcare, nutrition, etc and then be able to apply it
I honestly recommend having your daughter look through some of the course offerings in the 3 majors for this semester (spring 2020) and fall 2020, and maybe even Fall 2019 in Emory’s course atlas: Often courses in anthropology and human health have very detailed course discriptions (also note that key courses listed by NBB may originate from other departments in which case the listing will make you aware and sometimes the host department will provide the more detailed description):https://atlas.emory.edu/
Maybe this can help her see what is out there in terms of the course work she has access to in each. And out of the 3, I would admit that NBB likely has the best out of class infrastructure This is no suprise because it is one of the first if not the first UG neuro programs in the U.S., very popular (probably among the largest in the country), rigorous, and super well-funded (and it has the benefit of not being directly associated with the graduate or medical school in terms of being a program, so there aren’t like competing teaching vs. research interest. It is its own thing fully focused on undergrads) so has many study abroad opps, fellowships (has an excellent relationship with St. Andrews in Scotland which leads to many cool programs that are revered by students and faculty), its own undergraduate research symposia, etc. I’ve actually compared it to many neuro programs at near ranked (some higher, some same, some a little lower) peers and it appears to be another animal (in a good way) vs. most of them in terms of how well developed it is and how focused it is on undergrads (just looking at a departmental website can tell you a ton!).
Hi Bernie,
Thank you for all the thoughtful comments. I am wondering why people avoiding doing anthropology and human biology as a pre-health student.
@calyeegraphy :
Actually, a lot of people do indeed pursue that pathway, but Emory does indeed have heavier than normal clustering in hardcore STEM majors than other places with more “softcore” (the two that come to mind are the Anthropology/Human bio path and Human Health) options that cater to pre-medical students. And some reasons for this include:
A) Emory gets more students that are science included/more interested in STEM. You’ll see a few peers that have “softer” majors that pre-meds tend to cluster in primarily to lower their STEM courseload (ie, “it is just easier”…of course they’ll make up some lie like: “this teaches you what a STEM major can’t” and it may be true, but it usually isn’t why they chose it). B) Pre-med is very risky, so students may choose STEM and other pathways that are more likely to lead to grad. school in an area they enjoy OR potentially lead to a starter job that pays decently while they prepare to apply again. The reality is that if you do a STEM major correctly and develop quantitative, computational, and lab/research skills well in addition to pursuing experiential learning opps (research or internships in STEM), the STEM major would lead to a softer landing in case a student isn’t as competitive for med. school by time of application.
However, I’ll admit that there is an extremely large share of biology majors who are indeed using it as sort of a default pathway and aren’t doing what they are supposed to. They are putting all their eggs in the pre-med basket which I think is awful, and are doing a very “minimalist” approach to the major because they think they are preserving their GPAs or whatever. Reality is that students who plan to approach something like bio or NBB with a minimalist approach are perhaps better off in anthropology and trying to make the most of what that dept offers instead of doing biology and dodging any rigor within the biology or neuroscience major. It’ll likely lead to the same result. I just say, choose a major that you think you’ll enjoy FULLY immersing yourself in vs. just taking the courses and getting grades. Don’t choose a major just because it aligns with pre-med pre-reqs or because you think it’ll preserve your GPA. Keep a plan B in mind and pursue what you want to pursue. Don’t even choose a major “good for pre-med”. Your academic experience minus the med. school recommended and required courses and those that prep for the MCAT (which is more a matter of professors than actual courses) does not have to be completely centered on your medical school aspirations. Students from the humanities and social sciences have done well on the MCAT and med. school admissions as well (honestly probably better than lots of anthro. and biology majors because they do a lot more reading and analytical thinking in their courses on average and the MCAT is full of those things versus just content recall and low level understanding like many of the biology/anthro. courses that pre-meds flock to).
I’m sorry to interrupt but can I ask you about Economics/Human health joint major. My son is interested in this major and I’m not sure about it’s career path or if he can easily find a job with this major after graduation.
Thank you so much in advance
@hala334455 : I think people over-rate how easily people can “find a job” from some particular “majors” (like Emory’s business school places really well, but it being “strong” in terms of the coursework is really only part of the reason. The fact is, it has its own infrastructure for professional and career development from ECAS and can focus those resources on the smaller student body that it has. QTM, Human Health, and some other departments have a similar effect going on. They are good at helping students gain access to oppurtunities that help students apply what they learned in the classroom before applying to a start position as an employee. And in an Emory context, things like math, and CS are more “do it on your own” or “sink or swim” for that sort of thing as they are less focused on undergraduate education and development than other depts. Econ. connects well with undergraduates too and developed an awful lot of networking oppurtunities and whatnot over the past few years from what I see).
Even when I think CS, math, and other STEMs, I rarely think of those who find solid jobs after graduation immediately who didn’t do internships or experiential learning oppurtunities. Human Health and economics will be no different. With that said, I think Human Health is the side that is really good at looking out for students’ professional development and thus tends to help students place in a variety of jobs including healthcare consulting (and eventually administration). You may also want to consider the health innovation concentration with the business school as you’ll get access to the b-school’s career services resources which are exceptionally strong (plus through B-school electives and training, you can get a different style of learning). It may be possible that you can do both pathways, but I am unsure (as they may overlap heavily). But yeah, if he tries to get internships and experiential opps, and he’ll be fine. Definitely don’t rely on the “major” themselves and earning high grades or whatever. Employers will NOT equate that to competence and experience. I would also reccommend going beyond the requirements and getting extra math and computational experience (via math/CS or QTM courses. You can probably minor in QTM quite easily) because that will expand the types of internships and jobs your son could immediately gain access to.
Thank you so much for the response and for the advices. I will definitely share this with him
Hello, my son is a Junior and is interested in applying for the dual degree program at Emory with Georgia Tech. He has a passion for robotics and design. What major would you recommend him to take at Emory?