How do these pre-med and pre-dentistry degrees work? What happens if a student stops at their BS will they expire?

Pre-Med & Medical School
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Like for example both pre-med/pre-dentistry have similar courses at UIC.

After reading the user’s replies from my other thread this gave me an overview of ideas and thanks for the awesome help.

I should just focus on a BS degree at the moment, before jumping way into the future. But always ask questions, unlike other people who get pressured by their presents to go to medical school and end up hating it.

If a student does finishes up their pre-med and pre-dentistry degree at UIC 2 or 4 years.

How will the degree be labeled? For example

Johnny Apples
Bachelor’s in Pre-Medicine?

Would the degree courses expire in pre-med/pre-dentistry if the student decided to stop after completion?

I know 100% of biology courses can expire in 5 years if they don’t sign up and finish their AAS in dental hygiene.

I’ve heard university courses can last up to 10 years correct me if I’m wrong.

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Johnny Apples
Bachelor’s in whatever they actually majored in

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Other users at my college had told me it’s just a piece of paper doesn’t mean anything -_- They are new to CC.

Thanks.

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You major in what you want there and work with your pre-health advisor to make sure you complete what you need for your actual major and also whatever the pre-med requirements you might need if you apply to med school.

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[quote=“napnemeanix, post:1, topic:3504767”]
How will the degree be labeled? For example

Johnny Apples
Bachelor’s in Pre-Medicine?

Your bachelors will be in whatever your major is. So, it might be Bachelors in Music, or Bachelors in History, or Bachelors in Biology. In other words…Bachelors in some major.

Would the degree courses expire in pre-med/pre-dentistry if the student decided to stop after completion?

Not sure what you mean about expire. If you don’t apply to medical school within a certain number of years of taking the prerequisite courses, that’s an issue. But college courses don’t expire

I know 100% of biology courses can expire in 5 years if they don’t sign up and finish their AAS in dental hygiene.

Please explain

I’ve heard university courses can last up to 10 years correct me if I am wrong”

College courses last forever. I got my masters over 40 years ago. I still need to provide my transcript when I apply for new jobs

PLEASE. Please go and talk to an academic advisor at your community college…and the transfer advisor.

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That’s more clear :slight_smile: Thanks for the information.

Like if a student wanted to pursue dental hygiene in AAS, they have 5 years before those biology courses expire like microbiology, biology 1, sciences courses.

But some have told me ‘Prerequisite coursework can be no older than 10 years’ don’t know if it’s true or not.

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There isn’t a premed or predentistry major. There are just certain basic science classes with lab that one has to have taken, plus you major in something and get your BA or BS in it. You can major in Art History, and still go to medical school. You could, for instance, get a bachelor’s degree in Physics, and go to med school, but you have to have also taken the required basic sciences. It is extremely unlikely for a med school to accept someone whose basic sciences were taken at a community college. I have heard of med schools wanting the MCAT to have been taken within the previous three years before applying, but I have not heard of them being concerned with how long beforehand the science classes were taken. The recent MCAT demonstrates mastery of the material. It would be very unusual for someone to have taken the basic science classes over a decade beforehand, and then do well on the MCAT a decade later.

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Very true plus

after med school, there’s a USMLE exam
residency program.
state-licensed.
become board certified.

There’s a lot of hoops to go through after Med school.

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Many of the posters that have tried to give you advice either have kids that are now Dr.s or are physicians themselves.

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Bless this forum for the amazing opinions and help :slight_smile:

I still have options to play with it.

But now I got a brief idea.

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@napnemeanix

How will the degree be labeled? For example

Johnny Apples
Bachelor’s in Pre-Medicine?[/quote]

It will appear as
Johnny Apples
Bachelors in {Name of Major}

The major can be anything from astronomy to zoology. I personally know individuals with degrees in biology, physics, neuroscience, chemistry, biochemistry, forestry, viniculture, Spanish, Italian, English literature, business, public health, theology, classics, music theory, applied mathematics, computer science, biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, and gender studies who have graduated from med school.

Would the degree courses expire in pre-med/pre-dentistry if the student decided to stop after completion?

Courses never expire in the sense that they’re always on your transcript and you will always have credit for completing them.

But some medical schools put firm limits on how long ago you can have taken the class. The most common limits is no more than 5 years ago.

The reason for this is twofold–

  1. the field of biology is constantly changing and as new discoveries and new research happen. Your knowledge can get out of date quickly
  2. the student’s academic skills get rusty once they’re out of an academic setting.

Med schools (and dental schools) set the time limits because want to be assured that the student’s knowledge is up-to-date and that their academic ability is still intact.

Med and dental school is extremely challenging intellectually due to the huge of amount of knowledge that must be mastered very quickly. A student who falls behind will quickly fail out.

I know 100% of biology courses can expire in 5 years if they don’t sign up and finish their AAS in dental hygiene.

It’s similar for med school. If your coursework is older than 3 or 4 years, med schools admission officers expect the serious applicant will complete (and earn top grades in) several new upper level challenging biology coursework right before applying to demonstrate that they can still be a successful student

I’ve heard university courses can last up to 10 years correct me if I’m wrong.

University courses last forever. They will always appear on your transcript no matter how long ago you took them. However, their acceptability to medical and dental school for fulfilling admission requirements does not.

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OP- stop getting your information from friends, the internet, and online videos.

You need a meeting (over the phone is fine) with an advisor from your own institution to review your courses, discuss your aspirations, and come up with a plan. You are ricocheting from the uninformed to the inaccurate to the bizarre and it’s not helping you.

Every time you post “someone has told me” or “I have a friend” you are wandering into dangerous territory. Get real information about your own situation.

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Make an appointment today to speak to an academic advisor/transfer advisor at your community college. They know what your courses will fulfill and for what majors for a bachelors.

They can also advise you on where your courses can lead you.

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I spoke to my advisor

He told me if you really love chemistry, physics and biology go for the AS.

If you want to budget some time for it. I really love physics, you can compare physics to astronomy, like when a shuttle travels outside of further deep into space. That’s where the laws of physics stop. That has puzzled many physicists and do not have an answer for why that happens.

Back to the subject. He told me based on you’re speed of completion; you can wipe that degree out pretty fast.

I had asked my advisor is it okay to take 2 math courses while taking another two; he had told me it’s very heavy work. But now pre-calc and calc 1, music, and art seem very easy to me for Spring 2021.

He did warn me not to take two labs in one semester; I have not crossed that threshold yet.

I did take Basic Chemistry 1 with lab and plane trigonometry. The work was very heavy. As for me, I don’t work at the moment. I have a lot of free time on my hands.

I’m not trying to be Ivy League, there are student’s who have taken 28+ credit hours in one semester and passed, I was like wow that’s awesome :slight_smile:

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I was married to a research physicist for 30 years. my daughter has physics degree and she is married to a theoretical physicist who is also a professor at physics at major university. I know lots of physicists and have been listening to them discuss physics and astrophysics for 45+ years now.

I can assure this isn’t true.

The laws of physics still apply no matter where you go in space. That’s what physics is–it’s a set of universal “laws” that explain how the universe works on scale ranging from the very, very large (like gravity) to the very, very small (particle physics & quantum mechanics).

Astronomy is usually considered a sub-field of physics.

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I forgot to add more details. I meant laws of physics are very odd deep into other exoplanets.

Some exoplanets are 100% oceanic and no one know what lurks deep into those waters.

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Thanks