<p>I love science and debate. However, these two interests are usually seen as belonging to different types of people. I am a high school freshman taking AP Biology who is also doing debate and I like both of them. Thus, I am interested in pursuing a career in medicine or science, and expect to be doing debate for all of high school. </p>
<p>I know debate is primarily an activity for pre-law kids, but can it work with science/medicine, or, in other words, is it acceptable to have debate as your main extracurricular in high school and then get into an undergraduate university with a major in science and then apply for medical school? </p>
<p>Also, I will be applying for a science research extracurricular next year, since I just got rejected from it this year since there were only two spots open and one spot went to a super-genius sophomore and the other went to an AP Bio freshman who sucks up to the coordinator of the program (also our AP Bio teacher) on a massive scale even though I regularly beat him by upwards of ten points on the tests. When she told him why he got in, she cited his speech skills even though ironically I have won awards in debate, the coordinator of the program knows that since our school is small, and he does not even partcipate in a speech or debate event. Also, I'm almost finished with my application to be a volunteer at a local hospital as well if that matters.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>(Note: I know there is a High School Topics board, but it's largely stagnant as of now.)</p>
<p>It’s totally fine. Medical schools don’t care about your HS EC’s. It’s actually pretty useful; during your third year of medical school, your evaluations largely depend on how you do in rounds for your patient presentations – that is, medical school grading depends heavily on your public speaking skills.</p>
<p>Debate and ethics are very important in medicine. If you continue to do it in undergrad it will not look poorly on it.</p>
<p>Also, don’t be petty of other peoples achievements. It only slows you down, stresses you out, and makes you look bad. The academic world, for better or worse, is not a perfect meritocracy. Focus on finding other opportunities, speak to your adviser and see if there are other research opportunity in the community or something.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the responses and help!</p>
<p>MMMCDOWE: I’m not really criticizing his achievement, I’m more criticizing the coordinator. Actually, I think he’s really smart and a good guy in general, and I’m sorry if it came off that way; if anything, I’m still a little bit frustrated by the whole scenario since that coordinator also helped screw us all over for the AP Exam by basically skipping the body systems, but that’s a different story, I’m just telling you why I might have sounded that way.</p>
<p>If you feel the teacher is that bad then maybe it was lucky for you not to get roped into a program with him/her. ;)</p>
<p>mmmcdowe: Maybe, but I’m pretty sure the amount of interaction between her and the researchers is negligible from what I have heard from them, so much so that it is a topic of parody. Either way, I just think that one aspect of the class wasn’t great, not the class as a whole, and even when I do the research program that problem won’t be exerted on me again since it’s not an activity in which she teaches in, just one she organizes.</p>