<ol>
<li>Major in chemistry</li>
<li>Minor in economics or international relations (is there something that involves both?)</li>
<li>Become proficient in Chinese AND French</li>
<li>Utilize co-op and visit another country (somewhere in Europe or China)</li>
<li>Apply to medical or law school.</li>
</ol>
<p>Is it possible in 4 years? I know it's an ambitious proposal but I'm determined to do all of them as long as I can graduate in a timely fashion as well.</p>
<p>Becoming proficient in Chinese and French seems unlikely unless you have a good base from high school i.e. you are in Chinese 4 and French 4 right now or major in international relations minor in chemistry. France has a large scientific industry, so if you co-op there you should be able to pick up French relativity easy. </p>
<p>Also if you want to minor in a social science it may be difficult to get all of your other science credits in order to apply to medical school; I think your major/minor path is more likely to lead to law school, patent law more specifically. You should really decide soon if you want to go to medical school since there are requirements in multiple science disciplines outside of chemistry.</p>
<p>I can speak Chinese so I really want to learn how to read and write in college. I just know that my interests lie in between all three disciplines of medicine, law, and business. I have shadowed my dentist and have conducted research. I was an intern for a judge. I was also an intern for a business firm in Manhattan. People say I have to decide but I really don’t think I can as I enjoy all of them equally. </p>
<p>I just need to know if I can pursue these three things in depth in 4 years. It helps with my decision of deciding to attend or not.</p>
<p>Think of medicine law and business as a 3 ring venn diagram with the middle missing. You should be able to pick two and excel. Law school with a science base (patent law), law school with a business base (JD/MBA), med school with a business base (start your own practice) but I’ve never heard of someone going to law and med school.</p>
<p>Northeastern isn’t the typical school where people can change majors five times, and if you do it could be a serious waste of money. The core requirement isn’t huge and most classes will be completed freshman year. Thus students start to complete requirements for their major very early. </p>
<p>If you are committed you should be able to learn useful Chinese and French skills at any university with your background in Chinese. </p>
<p>Here is my main point: you will not be able to study those three things “in depth” equally. While you can study all of them you will have to decide to focus on physical science (med school) or social science (law school). If you honestly cannot decide you should consider a liberal arts college or Jesuit university (BC or Fordham) that has a large core requirement that will allow you to make your decision. </p>
<p>tl;dr Northeastern is not for students who haven’t decided what they want to do with their lives and want “to explore”.</p>
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<p>These questions are my favorite to answer.</p>
<p>Probably not. It’s less ambitious than it is idealistic.</p>
<p>First, it is extremely difficult to fit two co-ops into 4 years as a science major. The reason you would need to do two co-ops is that your first co-op must be domestic-- if you want to co-op abroad, you wouldn’t be able to do that on your first co-op.</p>
<p>Second, you have broad interests. That’s great, but you’ll probably find over the course of a few years that your interests become more focused. Sure, I love politics and traveling and reading longform articles, and my main passion is science. So I should probably be an explorer-CIA-biomedical-analyst, but I’m not, because that doesn’t exist. Instead, I followed the thing I’m most passionate about, so now I’m a scientist who reads the Newspaper and talks politics with political friends and travels when the $$ are available. It’s impossible to have a career that encompasses all your interests, unless you are terribly boring and only have one interest. Further, to be really good at something, like ericop said, you need to focus on it, and there are only so many hours a day.</p>
<p>Finally, Med/Law school is extremely competitive. You are competing against 25 and 26 year olds who have done things like (depending on which type of school) published scientific articles, traveled, volunteered, worked for top financial firms, done TFA, taught english in China, worked on a presidential campaign, worked at a start-up, etc etc etc. Becoming competitive for graduate school doesn’t often happen by the time you are 22, and most college juniors/seniors think “WHOA the MCAT/LSAT is insane, and I don’t have time to take it while also taking biochemistry and interning and trying to learn chinese and volunteering in a hospital.” and you’ll decide to take a year or two off after undergrad in order to pursue an interest and work on your med/law school application.</p>
<p>I know people who went straight from 4 years of college to med school, but it is not the norm. The majority (probably a large majority) of med school students took at least a year off after undergrad. Ditto law school. And, as a science grad student, the average starting age is more like 24/25, not 23, and definitely not 22.</p>
<p>I realize that at 18, five years of college seems like a lot, and 23 year olds seem like Grown-Ups that have Real Lives. It’s not, it isn’t, they don’t. Five years is nothing, and most people reach 22 and do not feel like grown ups, are in no rush to get into the real world, and realize they want to chill out and do something cool and different for two years (often in the form of making actual, real money, and enjoying it on traveling and happy hours and an apartment in a cool city, rather than taking out $200k and going right back to class). So it’s fine to want to graduate in 4 years, but don’t think that by doing college in 5 years, you’ll somehow be “behind” in life or in grad/med/law admissions. </p>
<p>Get to college, aim to finish in 4 years. Try to pursue all your interests. But don’t be surprised when your plans drastically change after your first two years of school and when you suddenly realize that it’s pretty difficult to accomplish so many things (and enjoy your life, at all) in such a short time.</p>